The Post-Library River and Confrontational Twelve Series
by impossiblesongs
Summary: This series started with the Christmas fic "How The Grump Stole Christmas," and so it goes... (aka: a River Song/Twelfth Doctor timey-wimey family series. Because why not.) (WIP)
1. How The Grump Stole Christmas

**_How The Grump Stole Christmas (1/1)_**  
Teen+  
12/River  
 **Summary:** _"Children crying on Christmas," her voice reaches out in the dark room, rising up and around, making a grasp for his heartstrings, and chilling him down to his bones. "Never could resist that, could you?"_ ; Post-Library River  & Confrontational Twelve, what could go wrong? (A problematic Christmas family fic is what.) ; (part of the 'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **(this had been originally posted on the night before christmas of 2014 but since i've made it into a series of sorts i'm re-posting them all in one place so they'll be easier to find as a whole, and thus this is also explaining for the following ramble known as the 1st & 2nd Authors Note sections) **

**AN:** While my other fics are basically on hiatus for the time being family gatherings and baking taking up all of my time and whatnot I do still have an angsty-fluffy Doctor/River Christmas family fic for you this holiday season. I guess in a way I was inspired by film _How The Grinch Stole Christmas_ but not for the reasons you'd think, the actual reasons I won't get into. I must warn you, Twelve has decided to be a problematic fave in this fic, and there's babies, and spoilers, and a bit of angst - all hectic and chaotic Christmasy goodness, just for you. I honestly don't know how this fic was constructed, it was a bloody rollercoaster ride and I just went where the voices of the characters took me, so forgive me if it sounds a bit off. Anyway, here's me, sincerely hoping you all have a fantastic holiday season and a great new year.

* * *

 _I'm the Doctor. I've lived for over two thousand years, and not all of them were good. I've made many mistakes, and it's about time I did something about that._

\- The Doctor (8.01 Deep Breath)

* * *

It had started with a whinny noise coming from his Tardis console speakers and then, slowly, the nattering spread straight onto his monitor. He banged at the thing a couple of times before he clued in on what the Tardis was doing: homing.

"Got something, Old Girl?" he'd asked his Tardis, at the time. She'd wheezed and groaned all across time and space before she actually landed. In a cupboard, of all places. He'd put Hitler in a cupboard once, such a landing was highly embarrassing.

Stepping out, he found himself in a room with a crying baby. He looked back at his Tardis, glaring and expecting answers for this. What was he to do with a crying baby, honestly?

"I'm not that kind of Doctor." He told his blue box, but crept up the side of the crib anyway.

She was a young one, this wee girl currently screaming her head off. She paused at the sight of him, blinking up at him with blue eyes that looked all too familiar. He leaned in closer, over the railing of the crib, and sniffed at her head.

"Ginger." He concluded. "When it grows out, anyway."

"Children crying on Christmas," her voice reaches out in the dark room, rising up and around, making a grasp for his heartstrings, and chilling him down to his bones. "Never could resist that, could you?"

"Melody Pond," The Doctor near-whispers, turning from the crib and in the direction the voice came from.

"Oh, dear." River takes in the sight of him. "You only use my name like that when you're in a right sulk. All melancholic and soppy. What is it then?" She prods, though she doesn't dare move an inch closer. He's sure he's glad for that. "What's got you so…" and her nose wrinkles, trying to come up with a word. She settles on, " _You_."

The Doctor approaches her, peers down and tries to establish what exactly he's managed to walk in on.

He can measure their time by small key points that, once tied together, are all telling. Her hair, for instance, is longer than he's ever seen it. It reaches far past her mid back, closer to her waistline. Then there's her posture. She's comfortable, settled. There is visible tiredness, but no weariness. No vortex manipulator, no guns. She's _homey_ , even smells like it.

"You're old." He says.

River snorts and rolls her eyes. "You're one to talk, sweetie. But thanks for noticing."

He takes a few steps back from her, from his wife, and deliberates his options. A baby, River, and him. Trying not to run to the first conclusion is much harder than he'd like it to be.

"Let's go downstairs." River interrupts his very important processing and motions to the drifting baby in the crib. "The Tardis is lulling her back to sleep so let her get some proper shut eye, yeah?"

"Yeah." He agrees readily, following her out of the room.

River leads him out, shutting the door to the baby's room very carefully. Onward, stand two other doors, both shut, and then comes the stairs. They descend them, both quiet, one leading as the other follows.

She leads him through this unfamiliar house into the sitting room. Warm and lovely, it is, with a Christmas tree up and decorated already.

"Is she…" but he swallows the question down. His thoughts are trying to work past the tiny pink baby in the crib upstairs, all warm and fuzzy wrapped in her cozy little blanket.

It's very delicate, this entire thing. His past self would probably fall out of a window facing this situation, stuttering and flailing about it as he does… did. At least he's not that bad this go around. It's comforting, in a way. He's not that man anymore. Soldiering on, he asks straight-out. "Is she ours?"

River blinks at him. Her eyes narrow slightly, looking for something or waiting for some sort of recognition. Something. At least he knows her this far along, he thinks wryly.

"No." is her answer.

He exhales, loudly. Not sure if the pang he feels in his hearts is regret or relief. He'll figure it out later, once he's alone. Now is not the time to go all soft and feely. Not here, not now.

A million questions bubble up in his head now that that's over. Such as: _River, why is there a baby in your house?_ And: _River, why do you apparently live in this house that I have no recollection of?_ And: _River, why are you older than I've ever seen you before?_

"She is our son's daughter." River reveals to him then, so unexpectedly. So disastrously.

"River!" He exclaims, hurrying over towards her and covering her mouth over with his palm.

He stares into her eyes, wondering _Is she insane?_ Mouthing off like this is forbidden, surely she knows. She quirks an unimpressed eyebrow at his actions and the Doctor clutches his hand back, holds it to his chest protectively, as if burned by such a familiar gesture.

Truth is, his palm does feel scalding in a sense. The flesh feels warm… with her warmth.

"You can't go on and on about this stuff at length," he says, trying for scolding and turning up with gentle.

River smiles, as if she knows what his intent was and how she's managed to twist him about with the least amount of effort. The smugness in her practically screams _like old times, then?_

Refusing to meet her eyes, for now, the Doctor decides to study at his hand. Looking down at the older flesh and rubbing at it, trying to get the warmth and the familiarity out of his system. He doesn't want to appear visibly shaken so he turns his back on her, moving over towards the window and looking outside.

Quietly, he mulls over how maybe not everything changes with regeneration. He's still running from her, in one way or another. His go-to instinct is still thinking hiding from his wife will be safer, easier. Though nothing is easy with River, nothing ever had been. He never had wanted to acknowledge that. Lying to himself as he lied to everyone else.

Suddenly, h finds himself repeating the phrase of a lifetime, or several lifetimes evidently.

"Spoilers," he says, softly. "You of all people should know better than that."

"Do lighten up, honey." River replies, far more flippant about this than she should be. He turns back around to look – or glare – at her, reprimands of all sorts lie right at the tip of his tongue. But River merely shrugs, resolute to remain unbothered, explaining it all off with: "It's Christmas."

He breaks out in a grin, however it's not a nice one.

"Seriously?" he answers, unimpressed. "That's your reasoning for being so reckless? _Christmas_?"

"You really are a grump with this face, aren't you?" River is literally beaming at him now. Her carefree grin only gives cause for his emerging scowl to deepen. "I can only imagine what you've mucked up in order for your sorry state to have turned up at my doorstep like this."

It comes like a wave. First, the astonishment. How her words trigger at something, how they actually start to glimmer – a fire slowly catching – and sting. How he _cares_ , so much more than he'd like to admit, and how her mocking tone sways him towards the internalized anger he's been so steady to avoid falling into.

"Let us get something straight," with eyebrows raised, he marches right up to her, furious. "I did _not_ turn up at your doorstep, River Song!"

"Technically, no," allows River, "but you are in my home nonetheless, sweetie."

The Doctor had always found his wife infuriating, especially when she was right, and this face is turning out to be just as rash with her as the last one had been.

"If there were anywhere else in the world, there is where I'd be, not here!" he shouts. "But the Tardis has other plans! She always does! Trust me," and the following words are out before he can stop them," I did not _want_ to come here!"

River looks away, biting her lip. The quiet extends around them and he realizes that she's waiting to see if the baby, _their_ granddaughter apparently, is going to wake up from all the ruckus.

Finally, once sure the baby is going to stay fast asleep, River turns all of her attention on him. He has the fleeting urge to step back, he's long learned danger lurks within such attention. Bowtie would have done so, but he knows he won't. He stays put.

"Well," says River, "if you want to continue shouting I think it would be best that you leave. The sonic may still not do wood, but I'm sure you can manage to find the door anyway."

He hears the intended slight loud and clear. In his head, he replays what he's said, out loud in a fit of fury and straight to her face, and he cringes. "River…."

"Happy Christmas to you, Doctor." River smiles, cool and reserved. "Why don't you do us both a favor and get the hell out?"

She waits for him to turn, to start walking, to get out. He doesn't quite do that. Instead, he stares at her, calculating whether or not it would help to apologize. If it will do any good at all. Words once said cannot be taken back and River is River, after all. He knows she won't back down, not now. Not when he's so obviously created a mess of this, of them, on Christmas of all days.

"Well?" River's grown impatient with his idling. "Go on, get out."

The Doctor shakes his head slowly, realizing he's not in the mood to back down either.

"No."

"No?" she repeats, highly suspicious. "What are you playing at?"

He shrugs and pushes his hands into his coat. "Like you said, it's Christmas."

"And you just said you didn't want to be here in the first place," she reminded.

"Now I've changed my mind." He counters. "I do that."

"You've got no obligation," she assures, "not to me anyway."

"Liar." The word comes spilling from his lips easily, calling her out like his previous face never could.

"Excuse me?" River blurts.

She's at a loss, he can tell. Clearly she's not used to him being this challenging to their own dynamic. No, no, no. This wife of his is used to his old face. The young one who would turn and walk out on her when things got too confrontational. The one who flies off in his Tardis when she tells him to go, even though deep down he knows she wants him to stay. The one who runs at first chance. There's a stability built on him being the unreliable one. He was good at that, he'll admit. This go around though… his feet are always planted flat on the ground when they land. He has less urge to flee and more inclination to finish what he's started. Of course, it doesn't always work out that way. He's not the hero in this story. In fact, thinking on it now, this face is simply ballsy in ways his previous self could never afford to be.

The Doctor crosses the short distance between the both of them, towering over her, his wife, and, very slowly, he meets her eye to eye.

"Liar." He names her once again, voice quiet but surer of his accusation than he has been about anything in his life for a very, very long time. "I have obligations, always have, and to you especially. You know that, as do I. So, why do you always pretend it doesn't bother you when I ignore them?"

River's eyes widen at his directness. Her mouth opens and shuts, many times, but she still finds no proper answer to give him.

"River," he says, voice softer, reassuring even.

His hand reaches up to cup her cheek, much more out of habit than of anything else. Just like he used to. Maybe that will help tether together whatever remains have fragmented with time. This gesture, he hopes, will drag together memories upon memories, lighting up the misshapen life they've shared and all it has amounted to.

They've been from bad to worse, sure, but in his opinion, there had been insurmountable good there. That alone made everything worthwhile. He used to see that in her, that unshakable belief she carried for the both of them for so long. It used to scare him. He's not sure what he sees when she looks back at him now. The realization sets that if she were not to see it, them, in that way anymore, it would break his hearts.

"Why must you always hide the damage?" he wonders, has wondered, only he's just finally asking about it out loud and face to face. His thumb catches a tear as it trickles down her cheek and she smiles. Sad and honest. _Finally_.

"Because you always seem to be at the root of it, sweetie."

He can't help agree with her. "That I do."

"Tea?" she says, pulling away from him and wiping at her own fallen tears.

"7 sugars."

River raises her brow in silent judgment. "Seriously?"

"Shut up." He replies automatically, suddenly unsure of how the words will be taken, but River has the makings of a smile on her face as she goes off in the direction of the kitchen so he assumes she didn't take it too wrong.

With one last glance at the Christmas tree, he follows after her.

 **X**

Once they are sat, each with their own cups, River watches him with fascinated amusement from behind her cup. He dumps the sugars in one by one, stirs, and looks up at her as he takes a drink.

"So," he says conversationally, setting down his cup and playing with the handle, "this is the first time you've come across me with this face, I take it?"

River hums into her tea. "What makes you say that?"

"The fact that I take this many sugars surprised you." Says the Doctor, leaning back into his chair. "You don't know this face."

"That is a rather good guess, Doctor." Admits River. "However, perhaps I've just never offered you tea before. Maybe you don't stick around long enough for me to do so."

The Doctor considers her. "Fine then, have it your way. Play coy. If you won't tell me about this face, then what about the others?" he questions. "How far back are you?"

River indulges him the smallest of smiles, an air of triumph by the way of it.

"Don't do that face!" he points. "You're the one who's offering up spoilers in the name of the Christmas spirit! Besides, it's not like I won't know about it if you're meddling with previous faces."

"Meddling?" repeated River. "Is that what you call it?"

"You go in and make my life all a jumble!" he cracks a cynical smile. "So, yes, dear. That is the word I've chosen for the likes of you."

"Fine," she allows, not pleased at all by his words, "but, whether you chose accept it or not, never once have I meddled without your consent. It was you who sent me back, after all."

He nods at that, shoulders hunching. "Indeed."

The Doctor chews on that for a bit, taking another sip of tea. However unsettling this meeting is proving to be, how ill-fitted, he does bask in her company. It used to be all banter and sexy shenanigans, but what else can he do about it now? Pretending to be different than he is would be lying, and he's done with that. Besides, didn't River accept every him that turned up on her? He decides to test that.

"I'm not the man you married." he says, eyes trained on her face and the expressions that fleet across it. Sadness, yes, a bit of mourning, but he can make out no regret there. When she looks upon him with those familiar warm eyes he knows she's glad to see him, even if he is a bit different.

"You are." She affirms. "You may think you're not, but you are. Deep down, I _see_ you."

He closes his eyes, looks away, and remembers asking Clara to do the same. When he changed and became this new man. This wife of his, though. She does exactly that. Even after his big mouth had gone and done insult to injury, she's never lost sight of him. One has to appreciate that, and what better time than now?

"I married a sulky, old timer." River continues, a bit too smug for his taste. "His true self being the grumpy granddad type, no matter how young he appears. And you are absolutely more trouble than you are worth, sweetie, but I wouldn't change a thing."

He clears his throat noisily, working past the emotions building up. He's not in the mood to play the weepy sentimentalist, damn the woman and her abilities to evoke the most uncalled for emotions in him.

"Obviously, you wouldn't dare try." he cracks a grin, even if it is a bit forced. "You wouldn't have the wee one upstairs to look after if you did."

"True."

"And the son we apparently have together."

River nods once.

"Whose name I assume you are not going to tell me?"

She grins. "Would you really want to know?"

"I don't know." He answers truthfully, drinking up the last of his tea. "Where is this son you say is mine, anyway? Leaves his daughter with you on Christmas holiday often?"

"He's out with Captain Jack right now." River reveals and the Doctor promptly chokes on air.

"Oh, _god_ , no! River, why?! Why would you let him go off with that man?" he sputters for a few moments. "Th...that is just bad parenting!"

River tosses her head back and laughs, the ringlets of her hair coming alive with the movement, swishing this way and that. They look so soft and golden. Oh, how he wants to reach out and tangle his fingers through them.

"What business has he with Harkness?" the Doctor asks, focusing on his cup to distance himself from his previous thoughts. He starts twirling his empty cup around on the table distractedly.

"Not that it is any of your business," Says River, and makes a stop to his cup twirling before he breaks it. Her pinky runs over his thumb as she grabs for it and a shiver works its way down his body involuntarily. River eyes him curiously as she places the cup out of his reach. "But," she resumes to answering his question, "Jack introduced our son to his future fiancé."

The Doctor raises both brows at that. "Future? So it's not happened yet?"

"He's more like his father than he'll ever admit." Says River, fondly.

"And yet a baby lies upstairs."

"Oh, our son knows who she is." River assures him. "He's met her at various ages. He's not as squeamish of foreknowledge as you are."

The Doctor bites his lip, not sure if he should worry over how this apparent family of his is approaching such things. Then a thought occurs to him.

"Jack is not throwing the stag party is he?" River purses her lips very tightly and he can only shake his head disapprovingly. "You do know those will go on forever, don't you? Once you let him start those parties will go on and on and on…"

"And thankfully, with a dad like his, he can go to all of them in one night." She says, as if reciting.

The Doctor crosses his arms across his chest, "Does he at least ask for a lift or has he inherited his mother's knack for commandeering my ship?"

River chuckles. "My love, may I remind you that you very much commandeered your own ship all on your lonesome. He's cut from the same cloth, just a tiny bit better than you on account of the centurion genes he's got."

The Doctor cannot keep to himself the laughter that bubbles up. "Centurion genes? Seriously?

"Did I stutter?"

He has to admit, he does like the sound of that. Slowly, they both quiet, and the question that is most obvious strikes him.

"Spoilers unspoiled for Christmas." He nods slowly, looking up at River and _seeing_ her too. "So who got you out of the Library?"

River looks as if she's about to cry. Then she clears her throat and repeats, "Cut from the same cloth, just a tiny bit better than you."

At his silence, she sighs, "It's not your fault. You should be proud."

The Doctor nods. "I'm glad you're back… that at least someone is keeping you safe."

River angers at his words. "God, you really need to stop with that ego and get over it. This isn't a contest between you and your son, whom you don't even know yet, by the way, so you can stop making comparisons."

She gets up and takes the cups to the kitchen sink, tossing them in with such force that they really should break, only all they do is clang against each other, echoing louder than is necessary.

The Doctor moves up from where he's seated and stands beside the chair. "River, I didn't mean it like that."

"No?" River questions. "You're alluding to not being able to keep me safe yourself, as if that was your job."

"Well, wasn't it?" he shouts. "You're _my_ wife! Mine, and I just left you there." He grins, and quotes, "Like a book on a shelf."

It takes her a moment to catch up to his meaning. Trenzalore. The last he saw of her, her echo. That does it. She's properly cross now.

"Oh, you sentimental idiot!" She rages, moving past him and back into the sitting room. "I didn't even know you could hear me!"

He follows after her. "So you wouldn't have said it, had you known?"

"I would have phrased it differently." She admits. "You hold onto things, sweetie. Those things hurt you. I was only speaking my mind and the truth is, you don't need to hear everything"

"But I want to know things!" he cries, so very desperately. "I want to know you, all of you, and you just hide it all away! All the time, hiding!"

"Like you don't do it too!"

There's a shriek from upstairs, silencing the both of them. The baby's cries slowly gain in volume and River shakes her head. Her shoulders droop, a sight more worrisome to him than he ever remembers it being.

"Maybe we're both trying too hard at something here." She says, wincing at a particular piercing wail coming from upstairs.

"Perhaps we've tired too much to try at the hard stuff. Excuse me."

He takes off, rushing up the stairs before River can have any say in it. He pushes into the room he landed in and finds the child in the crib, tossing and turning angrily, screaming to be comforted. He goes forward and reaches in.

"What are you doing?!" River exclaims from behind him, short breathed.

"Dad skills." He replies, lifting the child into his arms as carefully as he can. "I do have them."

She squirms in his arms, this tiny creature. Angry and restless. Somehow, with River watching, he feels like he should prove something, anything.

"What's your name?" he asks the infant. Her only resolve is to scream her head off. "Shush," he says, "You're all bark and no bite, I know your game. Takes one to know one."

The baby quiets in his arms a fraction but not before making a reach for his nose and pulling obscenely hard. He thinks he hears River having to muffle her laughter but doesn't let it distract him.

"Oh, ouch, yes." He manages to shake the tiny fist away by moving his head from side to side. "Okay, that I may have deserved. Outing your tactics on those you will use them on daily, not very nice of me. I apologize."

The child gurgles nonsensically and a kind smile breaks over his face. Genuine happiness starts spreading and filling him up in ways he's not felt in ages. His hearts feel as if they're trying to climb out of his throat and he's all teary eyed when he glances back at River.

"Susan," he waits for a confirmation from River, and when she nods, he manages to swallow down the lump in his throat before giving his attention back to baby Susan. "That's a mighty fine name."

Susan coos.

"You're welcome." He sniffs, "Would you mind terribly if I talked to your Gran now, in private. Boring, adult things. You'll find it all a bore, trust me. I can do something spectacular to your room to keep you occupied, if you'd like."

Susan gives her answer and the Doctor puts her back down in her crib, retrieves his sonic, and points to her ceiling. Slowly, her ceiling breaks out in images of calming supernovas. After several moments, Susan cackles appreciatively and the Doctor backs away, taking River's hand in his as he leads her out of the baby's room.

"Susan," he says softly, once the door is shut. "I have another granddaughter named Susan."

"Yes." River stands a bit out of place now, after all that. "Doctor, what you said before, about us being too tired to… to try. What exactly did you mean?"

"To try at the hard stuff, is what I said." He corrected, moving closer to his wife and pushing the long hair trailing down her front over her shoulder. "I was merely suggesting we have a go at easy, for once."

River shivered a bit when his fingers grazed her neck. "And what, pray tell, classifies as easy in this relationship?"

The Doctor smirks, "You know very well how to shut me up, River Song. That was always the easy part."

River catches his meaning and a wicked glee catches her eyes. "Here I thought you'd never ask, sweetie."

She leans closer, into his touch, daring to run her fingers through those grey hairs that lie atop his head and grinning when he seems just as riled by her touch as she is to his. This, they could do.

She curls into this new body of his and one arm snakes around her waist possessively to hold her there, meaning to tug her closer – as if it were possible. A warmth starts to settle in his gut and the Doctor leans forward himself, ready for his wife to snog him silly, when the door downstairs is heard opening and closing.

"Mum, I'm back." Calls an unfamiliar voice.

"Damn." River huffs, the warmth of her breath hitting his lips. She untangles herself from him. "Stay here," she orders, "and no peeking. In fact, go keep Susan company. She's sure to be waiting for something else to pop up besides bloody supernovas."

"River!" the Doctor makes to grab at her again, but she's out of his reach. He watches on, feeling all too warm and far too riled up, his own blood is singing in his ears. At the moment, he is only capable of gaping at her while she flees.

"I'll be but a minute!" she promises. "Go on, shoo!"

 **X**

"And this next one," the Doctor flicks the button on his screwdriver, changing the image casted on Susan's ceiling. "This is your great-granddad."

The image of Rory was bright and illuminated the room. He was smiling and happy. Amy took that picture, if he remembers it right.

"You're lucky you don't have his nose." The Doctor comments to Susan, flicking the sonic again. This time the image that pops up makes him grin, wide and a bit silly. It was a picture of Mels that he'd coaxed from the Ponds a very long time ago.

"That there, is your lovely grandmamma."

Susan makes some noises of protest but he hurries to explain. "Different face, same person." Susan doesn't seem to be buying it. He shrugs. "Guess you had to be there."

"How are you casting those?" the voice of a man interrupts their nostalgia tour and the Doctor glances towards the now open door.

There's a young man leaning against the doorframe, not too young but older than the Doctor expected. He has dark brown hair, nearly black, curly at the ends. He has a long, thin face and glasses sit perched on his nose. His nose….

"Now _he_ has Rory's nose." The Doctor whispers to Susan quickly before addressing the man fully. "The Tardis." He answers, giving a nod to where the Tardis had parked herself. "She's helping me project the images."

The man moves a few steps over, peering into the blue box's open doors and smiling. He looks back at the Doctor with mischievous, knowing eyes. "You're still trying out the so-called minimalism, _not_ magician, desktop then?"

The Doctor smirks, looking back to his granddaughter. "Do you believe this?" he asks the infant. "Your father is proving to be the exact replica of his mother. How am I supposed to get anything done in this universe with that hanging over my head now?"

The unnamed man, his son admittedly, laughs. Full of mirth and not bothered at all by the Doctor's tone. It gives the Doctor hope that maybe somewhere in the future he is not only dropping in, but _part_ of this strange, seemingly-already-happened-without him family.

"So, did you mother actually name you or is she just not telling me to cover up for the fact that she forgot?"

"Oh," the young man grins, "from what she tells me, you are nowhere near ready to access any of that data. Nice try."

The Doctor scoffs, "She's offered up all kinds of spoilers tonight. I highly doubt the universe is holding its breath waiting for another one to drop just so it can implode. It would have done so already."

"It's good of you to entertain Susan for as long as you have," says this stranger son of his, "but mum is requesting you downstairs, something about helping hang the mistletoe."

The Doctor sees the massive deviation of their conversation for what it is, but fine, he'll bite. "Is that right?"

"Listen, please don't make me any more a part of this than she already has." His son begs of him, the calmness the man extracts with his plain and simple gestures as he turns the situation in his favor is something the Doctor marvels at. "You and mum and your adult rendezvous should be kept to yourselves. It's very disturbing, even for a man of my years."

The Doctor wonders just how many years his son has passed but knows better than to push. Now is not the time to be questioning the young man. Besides, he's been trained far too well.

Rising, he tosses the sonic at his son, "Just point and think, show her anything you want."

"Will do," his son nods.

The Doctor finds River awaiting him at the bottom of the stairs.

"Mistletoe?" he inquires and she grins. "That boy," he points in the direction he'd just come from, "you've sent him up to proposition me and he is absolutely shameless in his efforts to bind wills to his way. While his daughter watched, no less!"

River's laughter is instantaneous. She tugs the Doctor closer by his coat lapels and he goes willingly. "Just like his father."

At that comment, the free-for-all rule of the night pertaining to spoilers starts to nag at him rather insistently. He has to ask, he just does.

 _So much for easy._

"It was bowtie then, right? His son."

River rolls her eyes. "Daft man, no matter what face brought him into this world, he is _your_ son. But if you need your ego stroked…."

The Doctor kisses her quickly. "Sorry, sorry, sorry. I know he's mine, I know, it's just…"

"Yes!" River hisses, looking at him ever so exasperatedly. "Fine! It was you, with this face you have now. Long story short, you were with him when you got me out, both of you. Both my boys." She tenderly places her palm up against his cheek. "Now kiss me properly, honey. Or I'll murder you with the Christmas tree."

An odd second or two passes before the Doctor shrugs, "Fair enough."

He swoops in and kisses her. Deep and toe curling and River clings, curves right into his body like she belongs there. Like she fits, has always fitted. It's at that moment he finally accepts, she always will.

"Wait, wait, wait," he pulls back suddenly, caught off guard by another question that pops into his head. They both pant heavily for another few agonizing moments before he gets anything else out.

"If all this is true, how come you didn't know how many sugars I take in my tea?"

River groans, "Because you make the tea around here!"

She then promptly drags him back to her and shuts him up for the rest of the evening.

Or at least until there's another knock at their door. It's Jack, half naked with a Santa hat propped on his head and a big sack of Christmas presents hanging over his shoulder.

"Ho, ho, ho." Jack says happily.

The Doctor shuts the door in his face.

* * *

 _ **AN2:** I_ _actually had a lot of fun writing this and I'm not sure if I'll just continue this in_

 _little snippets here and there as another series, but that aside, Happy holidays everybody. :D_

 _BTW, I had no control over Jack Harkness, he just showed up at the end. He does that. What the hell?_

 _It's Christmas._


	2. Little Boy Blue & The Man On The Moon 1

**_Little Boy Blue And The Man On The Moon (1/2)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood (with Clara Oswald, Vastra & Jenny)  
 **Summary:** _"It's time."_ – The Doctor is expected at his son's birth, where unlikely surprises and infinite questions are apparently one in the same. (part of the  'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
Disclaimer: Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Title from the song 'Cat's In The Cradle' by Harry Chaplin. I'm continuing this out of (sort of) popular demand. There has been want for more of 12/River and their timey-wimey family that was introduced in my Christmas fic and so here it is. I'm continuing it also because it is **massively fun**. Unfortunately I have no beta, please enjoy what you can, if you can.

* * *

The Doctor and Clara were currently being held hostage by some rather miffed Sontorans who'd stuffed them both in a cramped little tower and held them there for hours now. The only exit, which was the way they'd been dragged in, stood blockaded by a very shoddily made wooden door. Pity that the sonic still didn't do wood.

"You know, _this_ ," accused Clara from where she was currently sat on the dusty, dingy floor, "all of this is your fault!"

"Oh, yes." Snapped the Doctor, stopping his five-step pacing to properly glare at her. "Go and blame the one who can get you out of this mess. Nice, Clara. Really, gold star for you."

"I wouldn't have to get out of this mess if you hadn't got me into it," she pointed out. "I mean, did you honestly have to run your mouth like that? They were being hospitable, not insulting your ship. You'd think someone as clever as you would know the difference."

"You know," the Doctor laughs, though humorless it is, "I could have just left you back home, on Earth. I really don't need the extra lip right now, okay. I'm thinking."

"Thinking," Clara repeats, half-laughing and eyes rounder than he remembers them being, all incredulous-like as they gape at him from inside her skull. "Oh, Doctor," she shakes her tiny human head tiredly and closes her eyes, her shoulders hunching forward, grown weary. "You really are getting old."

"Shut it!" he points a finger at her, hoping the gesture is enough to silence her self-pitying moaning so he can concentrate. "I've almost got it."

Clara chuckles at his assurance, seemingly careless of whatever it is he's trying to accomplish. Still, quite helpless to it, they both look at each other and a real smile blossoms onto both their faces. Soon, the sound of her laughter bubbles up in the cramped tower. Chuckling like mad people, they are, when suddenly, without expectation, another body joins them in the small area.

Their visitor brings a puff of static and the smell of time along with him and the Doctor has to squint at the human-shaped form that's just appeared before them.

"Doctor?" Clara is up and by his side, her hand seeking out, gripping urgently at his wrist.

Having come across the lad over a dozen times now, the Doctor's feels he's not wrong to feel a bit shown up by the boy's presence.

"You?" the Doctor asks with an air of irritability Clara's never really heard from him before. It sounds far too comfortable coming from the Doctor's lips and, dare she say it: _fond_.

"I'm sorry, you who?" Clara ponders aloud, though the two men stand staring, seemingly content to keep on ignoring her in order to complete some sort of staring competition.

"Hello," Their surprise visitor greets then, extending a hand and all his attention towards Clara.

She's struck by the pale lightness of his greenish-blue eyes, how they shimmer in his irises, going off on her like live supernovas.

"Got yourselves in a bit of a pickle, have you?" this stranger queries.

"Nothing I can't handle!" the Doctor interrupts the unknown visitor, blocking the hand he's extended to Clara and batting it away. "I'm fine, I've got it, no need for you to come bustling in to take the reins."

The stranger's lips twist slightly at the Doctor's brash tone. The expression on his face however is overly affectionate, though Clara is at a loss as to how that can be.

"I'm sorry," Clara steps between the Doctor and this mysterious man he so obviously knows. "Clara Oswald," she introduces, nodding to the Doctor, "and don't listen to him, he doesn't know what he's doing at all."

Their visitor grins unabashedly and a fondness comes to his lively eyes whilst looking upon her. If she's honest, it's spooking her entirely.

"Yes, _the_ Clara Oswald," the stranger compliments her, "it's a pleasure, as always."

Clara raises a brow at that, stuttering, "A-always, you say?"

"You leave her be!" The Doctor scolds the younger man, in turn only prompting a bigger, wider smile to appear on this stranger's face.

"Come now, I'm only being nice." Says the mystery man.

The Doctor scoffs. "This is what happens when you have friends like Harkness. You philander about across the universe with no shame. I don't approve of it," he scolds, "I hope I've at least made that much clear."

"Enough with the talking in circles!" Clara shouts at the pair of them. "For the sake of my sanity, we're locked in a very ill equipped tower, lacking in the actual space to move and stuff, so unless you're here to break us out, proper introductions start right now."

Their visitor eyes the Doctor mischievously, clearly gloating in some way or other.

"She is the boss," says the stranger to the Doctor, "or is she not?"

The Doctor runs a frustrated hand over his face before taking a deep breath. His eyes land right on Clara the next second and she's taken aback by the intensity of his gaze, feeling a bit like she's been looked at by….

"Oh, my god!" she gasps, looking at the two of them and making out far too many similarities. Three steps backwards and she's up against the tower wall, eyes wide and disbelieving.

"She's worked it out, I think." Says the stranger, pride in his tone.

"Well, of course she has!" the Doctor waves a hand in her direction. "Look at the eyes. They're about to pop out of her skull and deflate all over our shoes."

The stranger looks over at the Doctor and shakes his head, "You are so very rude some days, aren't you?"

The Doctor finally turns fully to the young man, demanding, "Why are you here, Blu?"

"Thought you'd never ask, old man." Replies this Blu fellow. "It's time."

The Doctor stares until a look of realization crosses his face.

"Oh, _jesus_!" the Doctor is then moving quicker than Clara's ever seen him, sonicing the door like it will help at all.

"Ahem," Blu claims both their attention and makes a show of his wrist, or (more importantly), what is strapped around it.

"That's a vortex manipulator." Says Clara, recognizing the device quite instantly.

"That it is." Confirms Blu before offering an arm to her. "Hop on?"

"Oh, give me that!" The Doctor grumbles, reaching for the item and trying to place it around his own bony wrist. "You get her home safe and meet me when I call. I'm parked out near by the bins." He gives a glance at Blu, "Shut up!"

The young man raises his hands in surrender, "I said nothing!"

"You don't have to!" cries the Doctor with the shake of his head. The clasp on the vortex manipulator is proving to be much too tricky for him. If anything, he looks more and more nervous by the second. "This sodding thing won't keep on!"

"Give it here."

Clara watches as Blu takes over. His movements prove quick and precise until the device is safely secured around the Doctor's wrist.

"There." Says Blu. "It's already set to go where you need to be, I did that yesterday so you wouldn't have to. You're very welcome. And good luck."

The Doctor simply glares. "Do as you are told, Blu. For once." He pushes the activation button on the vortex manipulator and is gone before Clara can even begin to have any say in it.

Clara stares at the now empty space the Doctor has left behind for few moments before her brain moves on to processing. She's been stranded with this Blu, or whatever he's called. Why would the Doctor do that?

"You alright?" Blu asks, his question bringing her back to the situation at hand.

"Oh, fine." Replies Clara, finding herself in a proper grumpy mood herself. So much for introductions. "I've just literally been dumped while I'm trapped in a tower, no chance of escape. I'm fabulous."

Blu chuckles at her dismay. She tries not to be too annoyed with his flippancy at their situation. If the Doctor left her in his care then he must be trustworthy or reliable in some way, right?

"I don't suppose you have your own sonic screwdriver that does wood?" Clara asked hopefully.

Blu shakes his head, "I confess screwdrivers aren't really my style." Then, he's pulling out what looks to be a miniature sonic blaster from his back pocket while his other hand dips into his coat. "I'll get you out of here, Clara, just, erm…" his hand reveals the explosives he's kept hidden away in his jacket, "promise not to tell my dad how exactly I've manage to do that." And he smiles, big pearly whites aimed right at her. "Deal?"

Clara grins back widely. This captivity is turning out to be so much better than she'd expected. She shoves down all her questions, makes a queue of them for later, and takes the explosive Blu is handing her way. "Oh, you got a deal bucko."

 **X**

The Doctor materialized in a very white waiting room. Instantly, and perhaps because they were the only two in the room, he spotted Madame Vastra and Jenny. They had been in deep discussion but were now silent, taken surprised by his entrance.

"What are you two doing here?!" he demands, his callousness disguising his growing anxiousness.

" _We_ were invited." Vastra informs him. "And not by you, old friend. Shame, really."

The Doctor ducks his head at that revelation. "Sorry. I've been… busy."

"Gallivanting through time, no doubt." The lizard woman came to stand in front him. "That face of yours did need some trying out, I suppose. Does it suit you better now?"

"Can't complain," Replies the Doctor, "much."

Vastra seems pleased by his answer. "Wonderful, because your wife needs a good fit at this hour. Are you feeling well equipped to act as such?"

The Doctor looks over to Jenny, whom watches on quietly, seemingly unsettled by her wife's methods of questionnaire. His gaze levels back on Vastra and he replies, sure and without doubt, "I am."

A small twitch appears on Vastra's lips. "So you are." She moves aside, "She's down the corridor, turn left, second door. The nurses say any moment now so unless you want to miss it, I suggest you go now."

The Doctor nods. "See you when I see you, then."

"Indeed." Says Vastra. "And Doctor," she calls, just as he's about to turn left, "congratulations."

 **X**

Clara watches Blu pilot the Tardis with as much ease as he showed getting them out of Sontoran holdings. He really is a marvel, this one. They'd slipped out the front door in no time like they'd owned the place.

The questions she's had queueing up, well, now is definitely the time for them.

She takes another peek at him, speculating on his mood before carrying on, "So… you're his son, right? The Doctor's son? I'm not just having a massive space-age breakdown and thinking this stuff up am I?"

Blu grins and confirms her question with a firm nod of his head. "Oh, I'm his alright."

"How?"

"Well, when a girl and a boy like each other," he starts off, shrugging his shoulders in an impossibly innocent gesture, and Clara cuts him off.

"Okay, stop right there," she laughs, "I don't need that talk, heard it ages ago, and I certainly don't want to hear it when it's about the Doctor, so zip."

"So bossy." Mutters Blu. "He does love being told what to do, my dad. Pretends he's the one in charge but really, how would he get anything done all by himself? He's the mouthpiece, the brains, but he needs able hands to get what he wants. Always has. Did he tell you of that time he blew up the universe?"

Clara shakes her head.

"Course not. Bad for his rep. He can be so careless sometimes. Oh, perhaps careless isn't the right word…."

Watching him, Clara can see he's much older than he looks. Much like the Doctor. Such enigmas she comes across. She can't help love this life in time and space all the more. It's unbearable, unthinkable even, the mere idea of ever giving it up.

"So, guess I'm going home then?"

Blu turns his eyes on her and she instantly feels like shrinking back and away from the intensity of his attentions. "Home? Now?"

"The Doctor did say to take me home." Says Clara, matter-of-fact. "Didn't he?"

Blu quirks a brow at that, "And you always do what he says, do you?"

Clara grins, joining in the space right beside the Doctor's son. "Okay, point taken. What do you have in mind?"

"I fancied a trip to the hospital nursery." Blu pulls on a lever, jolting the Tardis into motion. "I'm a very cute baby."

"Isn't there some kind of rule against that? Paradoxes or whatnot?"

Blu waves those rules away, explaining, "Semantics, really. I know what I'm doing. Besides, we've got a lovely head start. Hasn't anyone told you, bossy lady?" he hits the blue stabilizers. "This is a time machine."

And Clara laughs and laughs.

 **X**

When the Doctor walks into the birthing room, he's in for quite a shock. Blu is sitting beside his mother and River is gripping his hand with such a force that there is no way such a hold can be pleasant.

"What the – how are you – what are you doing here?!" he explodes at his very-much-in-trouble (by the looks of it) family.

"Hello to you, too." Blu mutters through gritted teeth.

"I just saw you!" the Doctor accuses. "Out there, where you _should_ be! If you're about to be born, what are you doing here?!"

River lets out a growl-like cry, silencing the Doctor's raging and bringing his attention back to her.

"It's not Blu, you idiot!" she shouts, a piercing wail escaping after her words.

Slowly, it comes together in his big, thick skull. _Not Blu… not…Blu… OH._ The Doctor hastens in his way to make it to his wife's other side, the one Blu is not occupying.

"Sorry, dear." He apologizes, kissing her brow quickly, "I'm a bit slow this go around, forgive me."

His wife's emerald eyes catch his and he sees an endless amount of forgiveness there, but today is not any other day, and River squeezes his offered hand as merciless as he assumes she's doing to Blu's own hand. River cries out again, the sound so full of anguish that the Doctor forgets his own mistreated hand as he tries to think of anything at all that will provide some sort of comfort.

A flock of nurses start appearing all around the room but the Doctor pays no attention to them. Instead, he leans in close to River's ear, and starts speaking. Hushed nothings in Gallifreyan that only she will understand. Her lips curl into a smile, calmed for an instant by his soothing murmured words, but then the contractions start.

 **X**

Clara waits as Blu sticks his head out of the Tardis first. He shuts the doors upon returning and turns to address her in such a serious manner that for a second there she's not sure she's looking at the same person.

"Now, we can only look upon this moment without disrupting it, are we clear?"

Clara nods her assent and Blu smiles. He holds his hand out to her and she can't help but see the Doctor in such a startling contrast, only there's not enough in there. There's something else, someone else, and the merging of the two is utterly glorious.

Clara takes Blu's hand and leads her out into a corridor. They are on the other side of the hospital nursery, and through the glass she can see someone is inside, holding a baby.

Inch by inch they get closer, Blu tugging her at every step, until she starts to recognize this person they are sneaking up on. Dark hair, slender. She's seen this form once before. She stops abruptly, stopping Blu along with her.

"What's the matter?" he asks, voice so quiet and gentle.

"That's…," and she nods to the glass, licking her lips, "that's me."

"You see now why we mustn't disrupt?" He doesn't seem as bothered by this as she feels. "Clara? Clara, it's fine. You are fine. That is you, and you're holding me."

Clara looks up at him. The dark shade of his hair only bring out his too-lively eyes. "Why?"

"Because you're part of the family." He answers, as if it's all so simple.

She feels tears want to emerge and feels stupid for it. "How?"

Blu smiles kindly and his eyes dart away, off to the girl behind the glass. Her, admittedly.

"Spoilers." He answers softly.

The word knocks the breath right out of her.

 **X**

He has a son, a second son – to be clear. And a daughter. River gave birth to fraternal twins.

According to River and Blu, at an actual family meeting he _was_ in attendance, it had been decided long ago to name the children after Amy and Rory, only at the hour it seems a bit too much. Even now, after all this time.

Blu suggests his grandparent's middle names, and yes, looking down at his two newborns, the Doctor find that those names fit better than anything in the world. Arthur and Jessica Williams.

"We're Williams' now." River explains to him, after, while she cradles tiny Arthur securely in her arms.

"I liked Song." The Doctor grumbles, holding his wee Jessica in his own sinewy arms.

"I couldn't very well keep it, after everything." River confesses, and he knows she's referring to Manhattan, the Library, all of it that came before this. "And I am a Williams."

"You always were, dear." He assures River.

"We." She corrects.

The Doctor's eyes trail from his daughter to his son, and he thinks of Blu and how, now, so far, he's the father of three, and a grandfather to one – he can't very well forget Susan, after all. This family of his is turning out to be so much bigger on the inside. The Doctor smiles indulgently, but happily.

"Aye," he allows, shifting the little girl in his arms, _his_ little girl, to a more comfortable position. "We."

* * *

TBC


	3. Little Boy Blue & The Man On The Moon 2

**_Little Boy Blue And The Man On The Moon (2/2)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood (with Clara Oswald)  
 **Summary:** _"First and last, my love." River says, then shrugs. "He has a couple of them himself. That's all I can say on the matter, I'm afraid."_ – Blu does as he's told (sort of). The Doctor questions River and vice versa. Family stuff ensues. (part of the  'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer

 **AN:** WARNINGS, for retcon drug usage in this chapter. If that is not your cup of tea, this was your warning. (for more info on retcon, see the Tardis Wiki page) Timey-wimey is sometimes very hard to portray, forgive me if you get lost on it a bit.

* * *

Clara stares blankly at the Doctor's son, unsure of what exactly he's playing at. Why would Blu bring her here? To a nursery where she – some other version her, somewhere in time – is holding an infant version of him.

Blu sighs dejectedly, clearly picking up on her upset. He leans sideways and sags against the wall that hides them away. Those magnetic eyes of his trail off to the other Clara, the one who is rocking infant-him back and forth in her arms.

"I suppose a drink would be appreciated now?" he offers. Clara nods.

They head back to the Tardis as separate beings. Clara with her arms wrapped around herself, as if she's keeping herself from unhinging entirely, and Blu with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Neither makes an effort to speak to the other again nor does one of them reach for the other's hand.

 **X**

When the nurses come by to take little Arthur and Jessica off for some standardized testing, River orders Blu to go on after the nurses.

"Just… just in case," is his wife's excuse, her voice gone a quieter, shaky tremor of a thing really. She is still not completely trustworthy that those she loves will be safe. He supposes, after all this time, he should have expected as such.

"So where did you come from?" River asks of the Doctor tiredly, once Blu and the nurses are out of sight and they are left alone.

The Doctor stares at his wife and can come up with no other answer for her than: "Spoilers."

As tired as she is, River laughs and pushes back at her hair. Wild as it is, it looks marvelous on her.

"Oh, dear. You would say that," she smiles kindly, "and you should, if only you weren't so early off." River watches him patiently and when he doesn't retort she goes on, "You're not the one in need of keeping things secret. Not this far along, with this face of yours still so young."

She reaches out and her palm cups his cheek tenderly. He leans into it, listening to her and her words – which is easier to do with this face, for some reason or other.

"You've got so much yet to live through," River sighs contently, sinking further into the pillows of her hospital bed, "which means everything falls on my shoulders once again."

He feels a pang at that. "I'm sorry to hear that, dear."

"Don't be, my love." River says wholeheartedly. "We're here, like this, as we always have been. Taking turns, it's our thing. We carry each other through the highs and the lows, the both of us. Neither of us are alone, or if we are it is not for long. Now, tell me," she presses, voice gentle and patient, " _where_ are you?"

The Doctor chews on his thin lips for a second or two, deliberating whether his side was worth giving up so easily. But then again, River did just give him two more (by the looks of it) fully Time Lord children.

"It's all rather embarrassing." The Doctor admits, his hand running through the puffy grey hair on his head. "Blu found me in a tower. A horrible, tiny little thing. They'd put me behind a wooden door, River!" he shouts, properly affronted, then mutters, "Sontorans are very sensitive creatures nowadays."

At the word _Sontorans_ , River's head snaps up at him and she's giving at him that look. The one she gives him whenever the universe is about to implode, or something equally as troubling.

River swallows, eyes darting every which way until they land on the vortex manipulator strapped around his wrist.

"I'm assuming your companion was with you, yes?" she asks slowly, calmly, though everything about her screams the opposite.

The Doctor narrows his eyes at her, straightening in his seat. "Yeah? Problem?"

His wife shuts her eyes, tightly. Regretful, even. Then there's that fierce, protective-mommy face he's seen once and again on Amelia Pond's own face.

"Clara," names River. "Clara Oswald, is it?"

"River, what's wrong?" the Doctor demands, standing. "What is it?"

River opens her eyes, looking positively heartbroken.

"Blu," She whispers tearfully. "His life is playing out, just like our own did."

"Back to front." The Doctor had suspected, but he never dared dream it to be true. "But, Clara?"

"First and last, my love." River says, then shrugs.

"Explain." He demands of her. "Now."

"He has a couple of them himself. That's all I can say on the matter, I'm afraid." And she reaches out to grab at his hand, keeping him from running off and doing something completely irresponsible – like going to stop it or something.

"It has to be lived." She tells him, a tear or two falling down her cheek. "You know that, as well as I."

With his hearts in his throat, he sits back down, hand tightening its hold on River's own.

 **X**

"It makes for a lovely sight, does it not?" the Doctor's son asks, swirling the liquid in his glass.

They've made it to some smarmy bar on some planet she can't even pretend she remembers the name of. Clara nods her head, enraptured at the swirls of color now bursting from shade to shade inside the drink he hands over to her. She downs it in one go. Grateful for it, after all she's seen today.

"It's something I got off my friend, Jack." Blu retells, offhanded in his delivery. "It's a form of something called retcon, actually." He explains, taking a drink from his own glass. "It's an amnesia pill."

Clara feels herself slouch further into her own seat, knowing perhaps she should feel something closer to panic from what he's telling her but instead she feels fuzzy and nice and warm.

"It's very potent. One sip is all you need, really. I mixed it myself, this particular formula. Mum has her hallucinogenic lipstick, I have this." Blu moves his arm out and around to get a hold of her, steady her, before she topples out of her chair from the starting effect of drowsiness the drug induces in the beginning.

"It's a very effective model." He goes on with it, removing his hold on her when she's well and properly sat and in no danger of falling again. "You won't remember this day, Clara, or me, I can promise you that, but it does take a while to kick in so you might as well ask what you want while you can."

She blinks once, twice, remembers, and repeats, "As always."

His face goes blank, "Pardon?"

"That's what you said," she recalls, scowling at the memory of captivity. "When we met, in that godforsaken tower. You said that." Her big brown eyes bore into his. "Why?"

"You never miss anything, do you?" He looks pleased for a second before his brow furrows and his lips turns downward in a frown. For a moment there, it looks to her like he's blinking back at tears.

"The thing is, I've not seen you in a very long time." He confesses. "I miss you, see, and unlike my father I am very openly selfish. When I act on things it's quite clear why I act upon them. I've never found any sense in hiding my motives. He doesn't know that yet, of course. Early days for him, for the both of you, but since you won't remember," Blu turns to her and takes her face gently in his hands, with great care in his movements. "You were my first love, Clara, and – selfishly – I've only ever wished to be your last."

Clara looks into his eyes, past and right through to the heart of him. She finds herself fearful of what she sees there. Longing, heartbreak. She sees too much of what she feels for someone else.

"What do you mean last?" she asks.

"Dad brought you home to meet the family when I was young, a while after the second Christmas he spent with us. You'd just lost someone important in your life." Blu squints, looking like he's trying to remember something far off and in the distance. Something hazy with fog, with time that's too long gone by.

"You'd take five minutes to yourself," he recalls, "every single day, and when I'd asked, you said it was for him. That every single day, five minutes of your life belonged to him."

Clara feels tears well behind her eyelids, because she knows who Blu is referring to. Danny. Danny Pink.

"You were clever and nearly an equal to dad in everything that you did, but you were human and more than slightly impossible, and I… well, it happened early on for me." Blu's grin takes a turn for bashful now. It's such an odd sight to cross his face and she's transfixed by it. He chuckles, low and throaty. "You, however, needed a bit of convincing."

"Did you?" blurs Clara, studying every aspect of this man, knowing she should feel shame for doing so but she doesn't. Right now she just wants to know. She wants to know everything. "Did you convince me?"

Blu leans forward, very carefully, and just as she thinks he's going to kiss her, he places the most innocent of kisses at the top of her head.

Clara exhales, annoyed a bit by how anticlimactic _that_ had proven to be.

"Time for you to go home, earthling." Whispers Blu, "Time to forget."

"But I don't want to forget!" argues Clara. That panic she was probably supposed to be feeling since the beginning of it all? It starts to kick in now. "How dare you?" she shoves him away and stands, or tries to. "It's not up to you to make a choice as to whether I can or can't know things!"

Blu huffs out a laugh, the sound more than slightly despairing to her ears. "Clara Oswald, as if I could ever do any of this without your knowing."

"But you're telling me I forget all of this!" She shouts, admittedly a bit too loudly. "Stop talking in circles, yeah?"

"You're a very impossible girl." Promises Blu, "I can assure you that I don't hear the end of it when you do remember, but that won't be for a long time now in your future."

Clara shakes her head, "I don't like it. _Any_ of it, are you hearing me?"

"No one in their right minds would." He points out. "Sadly, not one of our kind has been in their right minds for long."

"Oh," Clara laughs cynically, "so now I'm one of you?"

"You hopped in a magic box with a madman and disregarded your plain life for the wonders of the universe," The makings of a grin breaks out across Blu's face. "And you haven't looked back since. Of course you're one of us."

Clara tries to be cross with him, she should be, but there's something about that face that makes it a fools goal to even try to be. Of course, the situation, on the other hand – that, she is positively livid with. She will make it a point one day, if Blu is indeed telling the truth, and she promises herself that she will throttle him for it.

"I should report you to your parents, but fine." She exhales, the fight in her being saved for another day. "How long until this amnesia thingy kicks in then?"

"Five minutes ago."

"But then, why…."

"I've told you already, only you don't listen." Blu reaches out and pats her hand. "You are more than simply impossible, Clara Oswald."

 **X**

Blu materializes in the backyard of his childhood home, on a quiet, darkened night. It's far along enough for the comfort he needs right now. Sure enough, a light turns on in one of the second story windows and Blu wanders over to the swing set he spent many years trying to reach the skies on.

His parents come out from the back door, one after the other, shadowy blotches until they are near enough to see properly.

"Blu?" his father asks, apprehensive of the sight in front of him.

"Darling," his mother reaches out a hesitant hand and lays it on his shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"Not really," Blu answers, sniffing. "No."

"I'll make some tea." The Doctor says, but Blu shakes his head.

"Can Mum make it? I need…" Blu takes a deep breath, "I saw Clara."

"Oh, Blu," his mother frets.

"I see," says the Doctor, gravely. "River," he says to his wife, "tea, please."

River nods, giving Blu's hand a squeeze before heading back to the house. The Doctor and Blu watch her retreating form until she disappears inside.

"Are Art and Jessie upstairs sleeping?" Blu wonders.

The Doctor's gray hair catches an odd glow as he moves beneath the moonlight, closer to his son.

"Don't divert, Blu." He says. "Not now. Tell me what happened."

Blu smiles, the sight of it grim, even in the darkness of night.

"Her first." He explains, "My last. I knew it would come, I just didn't expect it to be so… well, you would know, wouldn't you?"

The Doctor shuts his eyes, pained by the words coming from his son's mouth.

"How long ago was it for you?" Blu asks his father. "The real last hurrah, with her?"

The Doctor clears his throat, and answers, "Your brother and sister haven't lived here for a few years now. All of you crazy kids pop in for tea, bringing some sort of deviant behavior along with you. Most of them go by the name of Jack Harkness. That's where we're at now, me and your mum. Having Jack over for tea, and I have to sit there while he flirts with your mum, and she giggles like wee school girl." The Doctor scowls, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's absolutely dreadful."

While that does bring a smirk to Blu's face, he picks up on his dad's meaning all the same. _Too long_ , he means to say, _more than ages ago._

"Susan dropped by though," the Doctor informs Blu, squinting at his son to better catch his reaction.

"With her mum?"

"Course!" the Doctor replies, "Little girls can't travel up and around all of time and space by themselves, what's wrong with you?"

Blu snorts, "So much is wrong with me right now that I've numbed to the point of not feeling one bit of it."

The Doctor sighs, grumbling a bit before opening his arms. "Come on, then." He says. "Hide your face. Do it, before I change my mind."

His past becoming part of his present has left him feeling nothing but tired and hurting, so Blu sinks into his dad's offered arms willingly.

The Doctor strokes at his son's dark brown hair with a steady hand like he did when Blu was still no more than a wean and needed comforting that only a parent can offer, muttering _I'm sorry_ , again and again, unconditionally and seemingly without an end.

The apologies falls onto Blu with so much meaning that even though it's the dead of night, with his past nipping at his heels, he's glad he has this place he can come to. That there is a place he knows will always be his home and for certain points in time, in a rather lengthy amount, he'll find it, there, just waiting for him. A place where his father and mother reside, sometimes together, to seek whenever and wherever he is in his own timeline. A place of safety and security, being cradled in the arms of parents who loved him and would never stop loving him.

He peeks at the house from over his father's shoulder and he remembers, remembers when his dad brought home a clever, impossible human for their third Christmas together as a family. Remembers falling in love with her quite instantly and losing her in quite an identical manner.

There is so much Blu has to look forward to, so much yet to live. He has a daughter and a wife out there, somewhere, but the pain of past-to-present ghosts, of first loves, and of memories once made/already lived are picking at him, giving him the mightiest of urges to crumble beneath their wake.


	4. Against The Surge Of Waves 1

**_Against the surge of waves that held us, with that ancient grip beneath(1/2)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood (with Clara Oswald)  
 **Summary:** _"There, in a bed far too small for the Blu he's come to know, is a small child, curled into fetal position, letting out whimpers here and there. River sits beside him on the tiny bed, brushing the hair from his boyish face tenderly. Looking at the boy now, the Doctor estimates him to be less than five years old. The obvious occurs: he's never seen Blu this young before."_ – Blu is sick. His So-Called-Future comes along to help. (part of the  'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer** : Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** Title lyrics from the song 'Saferwaters' by the band Chevelle.

* * *

"I'll just be but a minute," the Doctor shouts, passing out through the Tardis doors in a hurry. "You just hang back and do whatever it is you do when I'm not looking." Thinking better on that he twirls back around, the ends of his coat swirling along with him. He points a knowing finger inside his Tardis, right at Clara, who is still pouting at his insistence that she stay put this time while he goes to sort something out. "Forget I said that," he orders, "and _behave_ , would you?"

The Doctor snaps his fingers and the doors to the Tardis shut before Clara can retort. He smirks, retrieving his screwdriver from his pocket and sonicing the doors, making certain there is no possible chance they will open for anyone, least of all her. He needn't have her just wandering out and catching a glimpse of where exactly he'd landed them. This was a strictly personal matter. If it were up to him, he'd have left her back on Earth, only the message on his psychic paper said it was an emergency. Emergency, underlined three times. River meant business.

Besides, they would most certainly not be colliding this way, Clara and his family. Not if he had any say in it.

Once satisfied the Tardis doors would stay shut, meaning several pulls and tugs had been required, The Doctor placed his screwdriver back in his top pocket and surveyed his surroundings. He'd parked just outside the house River owned, the one he'd call home sometime in his seemingly overly chaotic future.

Oh, but what bliss such chaos had proven to be and _he_ couldn't seem to help himself. It is another thing Clara would tease him for unmercifully. He would be having none of that, thank you very much.

It had yet to happen, though. The whole 'officially' moving into this place where his family resides and (if he were being honest) he wonders exactly how much longer it was going to take.

Whistling, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, he makes his way around the decorative hedges at the front of the house and runs up the walkway. It annoys him deeply to know that if he were a bit younger he'd probably be able to just hop right on over the damned things. He makes it a point to jump over the two steps on the front deck, mostly out of spite, and reaches the front door in no time.

He knocks insistently, impatiently.

It's not so much that he hasn't seen his family, rather that Blu just drops in whenever the hell he feels like it, bringing along his brother or sister, sometimes strays or worse (see: Jack Harkness). Blu actually drags him home often enough, and, well, he'd stay put for a few days – in the beginning, that is.

He'd marked it down, because that seemed important for some reason or other, how on his first stay he lasted two days and two nights. He'd be off, then, with a promise to come back soon. River and the kids would smile, tell him to be safe. There were no hurt feelings or overly complicated goodbyes. Underwhelming would be the word to describe such moments. Then Blu would pull him back in, and there he'd be. Back at this house, with his wife and children and those ridiculous hedges.

There was no helping, or denying, his desire to stay longer. To help a first-year-at-school Art with his projects and to be there when the markings turned up. Or, when he landed further off in their time, to sneak his teenage Jessie a cheat sheet while she was doing an essay on some rubbish revolution or other, and then share a laugh over it while they ate dinner.

A few days turned into a week, then two, which led to three. But since this house his family owned wasn't _his_ , not properly (not _yet_!), he'd relent to his self-inserted placing in their lives eventually. He'd take leave, growing more and more reluctant to do so after every visit, but he'd not wanted to wear out his welcome.

Needless to say, this fixture of inconsistency that they were all allowing him to be had been slowly driving him mad. The more he visited, the more he glimpsed of their lives, the more he wanted to close the gap that remained between them.

Two lives, he had. Options. If only there would come the acknowledgement of how this face is running to them more than he runs away from them. River has said nothing of it. She's not alluded to any permanence in his visiting and well, now they've reversed places. He's the one stuck on the outside looking in, waiting.

The front doors swing open on him, creaking at the hinges. There, with her hand leaning against the archway, stood his wife. River appeared disheveled and cross. Her green eyes, wild with fury, assessed him closely and her mouth pursed more the longer that she did.

He must admit, the sight of her like this is striking. The flush of anger that has broken across her skin really does only make her look all the more beautiful.

"Finally decided to turn up, did you?" she ultimately says, accusingly.

River turns, leaving him to either follow after her or not. He does, making sure to shut the door behind him.

"So, what's the issue?" he wonders to her aloud. River, however, is busy making it impossible for him to catch up to her. She rushes right up the stairs, not once chancing another glance at him or even remotely answering his question.

The Doctor grumbles to himself about rudeness and makes his way up the stairs in his own bloody time. These knees of his weren't made like they used to be. Then again, considering the last set of knees….

Reaching the last set of steps, he recognizes the door left ajar to be Blu's old room. The Doctor walks on over, deciding he's too old for this climbing stairs nonsense, and nudges the door all the way open with one bony finger.

There, in a bed far too small for the Blu he's come to know, is a small child, curled into fetal position, letting out whimpers here and there. River sits beside him on the tiny bed, brushing the hair from his boyish face tenderly. Looking at the boy now, the Doctor estimates him to be less than five years old. The obvious occurs: he's never seen Blu this young before.

"Is he sick?" the Doctor asks, quickly moving to occupy the space at his wife's side.

River shrugs, "He was fine all morning, then came the fever. It won't go down. I don't know what to do, where to take him. They," his wife swallows, choosing her words carefully, he notes, "they'll see his hearts."

The Doctor kneels down to closer examine his son, placing a hand on the child's forehead. Blu is warmer than he should be, that much was for sure. He spied River looking at him, her eyes pleading for answer as to where to go from here.

The Doctor nodded, standing upright and pushing his hands into his coat pockets. "It could be an infection or might even be something worse. Be it that he has two hearts or not, neither of us are real doctors." He points out.

"No bloody kidding." Replies River. There's not even an amused huff at his attempt for humor. "But the hospital will..." his wife shakes her head.

She's nervous, fear glowing alight in her eyes as she looks down at their son, pointedly avoiding looking at him.

"The Tardis's sickbay." She suggests suddenly, holding to some underling hope that he cannot decipher.

"A hospital would be the likely choice, really." He tells her.

"The sickbay," she says again, "for now."

The Doctor thinks of how Clara is still in his Tardis, doing god knows what. If he showed up with his supposedly dead wife and their child there wasn't a chance in all of the universe he would get by without Clara demanding answers of him.

"Sweetie," River calls to him desperately, her hand resting at his arm. He nods curtly and a breath of relief escapes her.

River gives him a thankful smile before she leans over towards their son, kissing Blu's overly warm forehead and whispering something in the boy's ear. Blu shifts his body to face his mother and his arms go around her neck. River cradles him in her arms before lifting him up with her.

"I'll pack some overnight clothes, as this could take a while, and you," she hands Blu over to him with care and the Doctor readily accepts the weight of him, "you get Blu to the Tardis."

While River takes leave to do as she'd said, the Doctor can't help but take notice of the room. It's so full, so lived in. He looks down at his son and his hearts clench at how Blu feels so weightless in arms. Such a wee thing he is, this young. And burning up.

His legs start moving before he can argue with himself about it. He'll deal with Clara's questions, there seems to be no other choice in the matter.

The stairs prove difficult, but he manages, shifting Blu upright so he can hold the boy to his chest with one arm if he needs to. It's a massive help when the front door needs opening. Once open, both hands return their hold on his son, splayed across the child's back protectively. Blu's tiny hands grip at his coat and the boy whimpers. It's a pained little thing, that sound; the Doctor's lips go into a tight, thin line with the unpleasantness of it. His child, still so little and not old enough know of any kind of pain. It's by sheer power of will that the Doctor does not lose his focus and crumble from it.

Every step forward, there's now a massive leap in both his hearts. They pound inside his chest and he feels like they are working their way up his throat. The outcome is positively suffocating. It's such a troubling nuisance, too. One he thought he'd never have to deal with again. How the seeds of worry sow their roots and grow, grow, grow.

Turning around the hedges, the Doctor spies a face he's not so familiar with leaning against his Tardis and he comes to a halt.

A woman, if body shape is still telling. Not human, though, going by the bright shade of salmon-pink her skin is. She's got her long lightly lilac-nearly white hair up in a tight ponytail. It cascades in curls down her shoulders. The Doctor notices a certain vortex manipulator strapped around her wrist and sighs, relief probably.

"Ready when you are." She says. Her voice is gently whimsical and naturally light, a genuine soft-spoken lass. There is a slight twisting of her words and that tell him English is probably not her first language.

Blu wriggles in the Doctor's hold, lulled to consciousness by the sound of her voice also, it seems. The Doctor keeps Blu's face shielded from the woman and he quiets down in no time, too taken by the fever to struggle.

"And what is your name?" the Doctor asks.

She smiles sweetly at him before taking off the vortex manipulator. "You must get this on your companion and press the button. She'll be sent to her time, on Earth." She holds the gadget out to him. "I'll hold Blu while you do so."

The Doctor cradles his son closer to himself, surprised to find himself far more reluctant to share now that he's got the boy securely in his arms. "Why should I trust you?"

The Doctor already has his suspicions, of course. Pink or not, the smile on this female's face is identical to the one his very own granddaughter, Susan, shares.

She walks closer to him, dainty in her steps and posture near perfection. There's an air about her, this creature. He can't put his finger on why it calls attention, or why _he_ finds it so attention-worthy.

She's neared close enough that the Doctor can see her eyes flash a deep molten gold at the iris. They remind him of a fine whiskey. Her skin is not only one of the more pleasing shades of pink, but there are patterns he'd not noticed from far away. On her wrists there are markings, patterns one misses at first glance, that swirl outward all across her flesh. They catch a reflective golden hue whenever the sun hits them just right.

If she were a diamond, he reckons she'd glisten just as prettily.

"Do you really have the time to be badgering me until I admit something cataclysmic for us both?" she poses.

The Doctor shifts Blu in his arms, handing him over to this very-much-alien female character as gently as he can, accepting the vortex manipulator into his possession as they switch.

He watches how she handles his son with great care, shushing his squirming in her unfamiliar arms with soft murmurs in his ear. Blu is safe enough with this stranger, or so it would seem.

The Doctor walks short distance away to his ship. A snap of his fingers and the doors respond in kind, swinging open on command. He doesn't bother shutting them all the way.

"Clara!" he calls aloud and spots her in the top portion of the ship, lounging in a chair. She bolts upright at his sudden entrance.

"You were gone long enough!" she reprimands, rushing over to be at his side "What's that?" she points to the item in his hands, stilling.

Those wide, owlish eyes are all more unnerving every time she puts them on but he closes the distance between them anyway.

"You know very well what this is." he says, taking hold of her hand and wrapping it around her wrist. Once it's tight and set he asks, "Clara Oswald, do you trust me?"

Clara squints, a frown tugging down her bright red lips. "You're sending me away again."

"Now is not the time for you to be a sentimentalist, Clara!" he rasps, almost a scolding. "I need you to trust me. Yes?"

Though she's gone all teary-eyed and can't seem to find her voice, Clara gives him a firm nod.

"Good. You keep this on your wrist, _don't_ lose it."

"Just promise me you'll come back for me if you need me," is all Clara asks of him. "Whatever it is, promise me you won't go through it alone."

The Doctor gives her a nod of his own, promising, "I'll come to you as soon as I can."

They stare at each other and he can sense a hug coming along if he doesn't go and get on with it. All that makes up Clara's presence is taken away from him with a crackle of static. The Tardis seems dimmer without her.

Switching his mind to focus on the situation at hand, the Doctor inputs various commands at the console before making sure the sickbay is where he'd seen in last. It is not, but the Old Girl switches around often. It shouldn't be too hard to find and he reckons it'll turn up once Blu is safely inside. His Tardis is nothing but reliable when showing favoritism towards River. This, he's sure, will be no different.

The Doctor heads back towards the front doors, letting the Old Girl figure herself out in the meantime. He stills at the voices, hushed and all too chummy, that spill in from the outside.

"And how are things?" that's his wife's voice, and there is relief in her tone. Also, genuine concern.

"Things are… things." The stranger he'd met mere seconds ago answers. "They will get better." There is resolution there, a mind firmly made, intent to follow through. In what, he has an inkling of an idea. "They must." A pause, "For her."

"I have all the faith in you, dear." River replies with conviction.

The Doctor decides now a good time as any to make his reappearance and clears his throat while doing so.

"Ready or not," he says, eyeing this stranger and his wife interestingly. Once the pink-skinned stranger has handed Blu over into River's care, River tosses a grateful smile her way, their eyes locking momentarily. Spoilers, the Doctor decides, is what this exchange of glances entails. It's annoying. So he interrupts, "I don't have all the time in the world, you know."

River turns her eyes on him, brow raised in reproach to his outburst, and replies, "Time is exactly what you do have. Please do pardon him," she directs to their outside company, conversational as ever. "He's a bit thick and the older he gets makes him grumpy. But at least he's finally acting his age, bless."

" _River_ ," he cuts in, motioning to Blu with a hand. His wife looks slightly apologetic about idling to gossip, what with Blu's condition. She thanks their unknown (to the Doctor, anyway) visitor before moving to pass him and disappearing inside his ship.

The Doctor leans outward, eyeing the pink-skinned alien who's come to their rescue quite literally. He sorts through the reasons and possibilities jumbling all around in his head, unsure of several things and yet dead certain in others. She's plenty busy to be carrying out whims like this, the patterns shown on her wrist were a giveaway. It may have taken him a while, with other things begging his full attention, but he worked out what they were, what _she_ ultimately was. Royalty. And her species are not the kind to allow outside consorts into the family, let alone ones who _look_ human.

Oh, when he gets his hands on the right Blu, the boy will have so much explaining to do.

"So what Reign do you belong to exactly?" the Doctor's question takes her by surprise and her eyes widen a fraction. Yes, a satisfying whiskey coloring indeed.

"You are as perceptive as he said you'd be." Is her answer.

He smirks, "Tell Susan her gramps says hello."

"I will."

He disappears inside his Tardis.

* * *

 **TBC**


	5. Against The Surge Of Waves 2

**_Against the surge of waves that held us, with that ancient grip beneath (2/2)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood  
 **Summary:** _"He snuck away from the sickbay, needing a word with his son (a future version) in regards to so many things. The best way to do that, arguably, was to depend on the telepathic circuits."_ – The Doctor wants answers, he gets them. (part of the  'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** Title lyrics from the song 'Saferwaters' by the band Chevelle.

* * *

Blu had been in the Tardis sickbay for the rest of the night and most of the day that followed. Thankfully, the boy was out cold through the worst of his fever. The Doctor and River hovered anxiously at their son's bedside, waiting and watching, unsure at every turn. Slowly but steadily, Blu started responding to whatever treatment the Tardis had chosen for him, meaning a trip to an actual hospital was less needed than it had been initially. River seemed to be more than just relieved for it.

The Old Girl worked cleverly and without need of orders or suggestions, much to the annoyance of the Doctor. His ship had also not revealed much but the boy's ongoing status from time to time. The Doctor took many a glance over at River suspiciously, trying to work out what exactly the Tardis was hiding from him on her account, yet River gave him nothing and neither did his Tardis.

His wife's pacing soon became a tiring sight and he'd snapped at her to go find to their room, the one she'd shared with bowtie.

"It should be around here somewhere," he'd assured her, impatience leaking through in his tone from the countless unknowns he seemingly always had to deal with.

"I'm fine, thank you." River had replied crisply, ignoring him entirely from that point on.

River's chilly treatment for the next hour only confirmed his assumptions that he'd said the wrong thing, or said it in the wrong way. Annoyed and worried, the Doctor found no point in apologizing. They carried on, hovering over their son in silence.

Eventually, she did cave to her exhaustion, falling asleep at Blu's bedside. The Doctor took this as his opportune moment to sneak back to the console, but not before checking Blu over and making sure he was stable for the time being.

The sight of River did still him, though. Her face was worry free and the golden ringlets he loved cascaded every which way. He moved several away from her face, staring openly. The ' _sorry'_ he'd been reluctant in yielding to caught in his throat and he swallowed it down, the force of it nearly bringing tears to his eyes. It makes saying goodbye to Clara that one time, after she and Danny Pink were supposed to get their happily ever after but didn't, seem like a walk in the park. Not that he ever walks in the park. Too boring.

He decides there are too many _sorry's_ to atone for, here and now, and he hasn't got the time for it. River is wrong. Time has never been all he's had. In fact, time is what runs out. He has much to take care of before that happens again.

He snuck away from the sickbay, needing a word with his son (a future version) in regards to so many things. The best way to do that, arguably, was to depend on the telepathic circuits.

Once at the console, the Doctor switched on the blue stabilizers and cloaked the Tardis to invisibility mode. He had an inkling to where she would land and the place was not likely to be welcoming him with open arms. The Doctor switched the monitor to face him before positioning himself.

"Alright, Old Girl." He stuck his hands in gently and his eyes slipped closed. "Take me to him," he requested, before clarifying, "a _right_ him."

The Doctor made sure his mind was on point. Unlike Clara, the Doctor would not let his mind deviate from his purpose. He envisioned the man he knew, not the child he'd just met. Blu, who was all grown up and far too much like him than was healthy, for this universe or the next.

The Tardis did not make much noise in her travels, nor did she give any sign of takeoff, but he knew his ship. His eyes opened upon landing.

The monitor reported the year 421K, on the planet Sliva Hapra. The K represented the eleventh revolution being in full order now, and according to the Tardis data, the planet was under the Reign of Kifa. Detailed accounts maintained the planet to be of alien race, hardly anything close to human resided here. The placing was too far away from Earth and not likely to catch a human's attention. They were very strict on Sliva Hapra, very resolved to keep their species pure and untainted.

The Doctor found it safe to assume Blu's coming across this planet had something to do with a certain Captain Jack, and frowned. Reading more, he realized he'd never looked twice at this particular species. He never really cared for them, if he was completely honest. The reason was simple: they'd never needed his input and he'd never felt the need to barge in.

Sighing, the Doctor pulled his hands completely free from the telepathic circuits and shut off the monitor. He turned towards the doors and swung them open with one sharp pull. He took the remaining steps outward, feeling the Tardis doors shutting right on after him.

The Doctor found himself standing in an overly large room with impossibly high ceilings. The structure was something otherworldly, the walls glistening with patterns and shades of all colors. Royalty, he reminded himself with a grimace.

"Grandfather!" came a sudden outcry from a voice he recognized instantly as Susan's.

The young girl threw herself into his arms unexpectedly and the Doctor just barely managed to reach out for her in time. He found his body quickly enveloped by strong, though stick-like, arms. She hugged him fiercely, this granddaughter of his, giving him no chance at escape whatsoever. His eyes bulged, wider and wider, the longer it went on. The Doctor took note of the room, every inch, out of habit while also patting awkwardly at the young girl's back.

"Now, now," came a familiar voice from behind them both, highly amused at the situation. "You know this Gramps of yours and how he hates hugs." Blu came into his view momentarily. "Let go, Susan." Said the girl's father.

Susan did as her father said, not one bit sorry over the assault either. The Doctor's body twitched unpleasantly from aftermath of such an embrace, a frown on his lips as he brushed off his coat with twitching hands. As if Susan had left something foul imprinted on him. The young girl didn't seem to mind his discomforts, simply smiled up at him as if she'd done something worth smiling over. Blu had the same expression on his own face.

"You have class, do you not?" Blu questioned of Susan.

"Class you stole me away from," replied Susan, rather confidently.

"So, I did." Admitted Blu, eying his father with a mischievous grin. The Doctor, however, did not return Blu's smile. Instead, he glowered at his son, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Gramps is giving you the evil eyebrow, daddy." Said Susan. "Are you in trouble?"

Blu sighed at his daughter, not once taking his eyes away from the Doctor's. "Most definitely," he answered, going down on bended knee to reach her height. "Go on now, petal." Blu brushed the bright red curls from her round face, promising, "I'll find you after."

Susan kissed his cheek before doing as she was told, waving her goodbye to the Doctor as she did so.

The Doctor and Blu were left alone. Blu scowled when his father did not relent the intensity of his glare.

"Oh, come now. Out with it!" Blu prompted him with a wave of his hand, preparing for whatever it was the Doctor was holding in for Susan's sake.

"The Reigns of Sliva Hapra do not marry out of their own species, Blu." The Doctor stated simply.

"Ah!" Blu grinned fully. "So, you've met Harry. Well, _I_ call her Harry. She quite likes it."

"Is that her name?" the Doctor questioned, scoffing. "The, what? Princess, is she? Or did you seduce a Queen straight from her marital bed?"

"It wasn't like that." Blu frowned, shaking his head. "And that's not fair."

"Of course it's like that!" the Doctor scowled. "I had a snog with Madame De Pompadour myself, once a lifetime ago. You don't see me marrying her for it!"

"No," Blu corrected, "You married a virgin queen, if accounts are to be trusted."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, "I am not the one in the wrong here! Look at this place! Look at it! And _Susan_!" he neared Blu, voice lower and more insistent. "Do you know how they will refuse her? This species is not without their pride or their customs. Did you really think you could get away with this?" he questioned. "They are the way they are for a reason, Blu, and they do not take to outsiders. They do _not_."

Blu stood taller, any and all humor gone from him at the Doctor's assuming tone. "This is my family, father. You speak of things you know nothing about, else-wise you'd not speak like this." Blu had to take a calming breath before inquiring, "Where are you?"

"Oh, don't start up with that!" the Doctor paced away from his son before turning and pointing a finger in accusation, "You sound just like your mother."

" _Where_ are you?" Blu asked again, ever persistent – like his mother.

"You have some kind of fever." The Doctor answered offhandedly. "It's fine. You're fine. I just… I needed to scold you," he gestured around the grandiose room, " _obviously_!"

The Doctor scowled at the walls, as if they themselves offended him. He glanced back at Blu and found his son with a look on his face that quite resembled bitterness.

"What is it?" the Doctor demanded.

Blu shook his head, "You must go back to mother, now. And you don't come back until it's over, this happening our timeline. Promise?"

"Why?"

"Father," pleaded Blu.

" _Why_ , Blu?"

"Just," his son smiled. A sad, sad thing it was. Blu looked his father in the eye, "Do as you are told. I bet that sounds familiar, hmm?"

The phrase caught the Doctor off guard and a chill sprung from beneath his skin, instilling a frightful feeling to uncurl from both his hearts. He did hate when that happened.

"Fine." The Doctor said, finally, after the lump building in his throat allowed him back his voice. "You be here, do you hear me? I don't want to have to be tracking you down for months on end."

"I'm not going anywhere." assured Blu. "I have a family to take care of."

Though reluctant, the Doctor bid his son farewell with a single nod.

 **X**

Entering the sickbay, he found River had gotten into the bed with Blu, holding him in her arms. She was crying. Hearts in his throat, The Doctor hurried over to her.

"What's happened?" his voice had gone authoritative enough to make his wife flinch and hide her face away from him. " _River_ ," the Doctor tried for kinder, not knowing if he could pull it off. Not with the sight of her holding their child like a rag doll, so tiny and small and _breakable_ , in her arms. _Their_ little boy, finally looking it. It's an adjustment to everything the Doctor has come to know of their Blu. He was not ready for it. "What's gone wrong? Please tell me!"

"Nothing," River answered, quietly, clutching their son closer to her chest. She's acting very protective, but from who exactly? After a beat, she says, "Everything." And her teary eyes met his, reluctant to do so. "I'm so sorry, my love." She says, her bottom lip trembling.

The Doctor reaches a finger up to stop her lip from doing that. It's not helping. "I don't understand." He admits, afraid to glance back at the young Blu. He settled for River's eyes instead.

River's beautiful green eyes, all red and swollen from her bout of tears. Tears she's been crying for how long? Had she even fallen asleep or did she know he'd needed her to pretend in order for him to sneak off?

"He's not," her breath catches and a new set of tears trail down her cheeks, "It's my fault."

He though he'd seen River look guilty before, but it's nothing compared to the look she's giving him now. "What is?"

River steadies herself, swallowing. She shuts her eyes tightly and pulls herself together, when she meets his stare again she is unflinching. The Doctor's gut tightens in anticipation.

"Blu is human-plus."

The Doctor sucks in air, blinking and processing. "But he… but two hearts, you said he had two."

River nods. "And he does. He's just not…."

The Doctor watches as his wife's arms tremble around Blu, he can almost hear the damnable chant going on her own head. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._ The idea that she has anything to be sorry for makes his insides churn.

"It is not your fault." he tells her, softly, reaching a hand to grip at her upper arm. "River, there is nothing wrong with being human-plus. For instance, look at you."

"Yes. A murderer and a thief." She recites humorously. "How remarkable, indeed."

The Doctor raises a disapproving brow. She shouldn't talk like that in front of Blu, even if the boy is unconscious.

"If you are, then I am."

There's a lovely fury behind her eyes when they set their attention on him. "Don't you dare compare yourself to me."

"You're right, of course." He nods, determined to prove a point. "You saved people. Me? Not so much."

"You saved plenty!" She insists.

"And so have you." He counters. "But if you're just going to overlook that, then I'll just have to do the same. Fair is fair, after all."

River can't argue against that logic. Instead she presses her lips to Blu's head, hiding away from the Doctor's judgment. As if he'd judge her for something else she couldn't help.

"There's nothing wrong with him," the Doctor maintains, "or you."

River is visibly shaking. "Please don't give me the benefit of the doubt, Doctor." She begs, "I don't deserve it. Not this time."

The Doctor watches his wife, uncertain as to why she feels as if this is something she needs to be blamed for. She's given him children. Regardless of genetic factors, she's done more for him than he deserves. But perhaps there's something else. Something worse to this that she's still not letting him know. The Doctor thinks of their son and how Blu is always the same. He wonders….

"Can he regenerate?"

River shrugs, "I don't know. He's just barely turned five years old and I'm not overly anxious to find out."

The Doctor mulls over her statement quietly and considers her. "How long has it been for you, River? Since you left the Library?"

His wife sneaks a glance at him, "I had thought you were older. But you're always so… this face, it's harder to read. I wasn't sure." An exhale, "It's been six years for me, Doctor. But we haven't seen you since his birthday," she reveals to him, "and that was four months ago."

He doesn't know what to say at that.

"It was odd." Her brow wrinkles. "You're always there, always. You hadn't left my side since that day, when you got me out." River laughs and he gets the impression that she's remembering something far from here, from this. "We usually can't get rid of you unless we shove you out the door ourselves, and then suddenly you weren't there. I suppose it all worked out how it was meant to but I was unprepared this time, all on my own. That's never happened before. Well, _before_."

She's uncomfortable admitting to that, he can tell by the way she won't look at him while she's talking.

"Truth is," she pauses all of a sudden, unsure if exposing more of how she's felt to him is wise.

"Yes?" he prompts, hoping she won't choose to stop opening up to him now. He nods his encouragement when she glances at him.

He wants to hear this, she needs to know that.

River smiles, this one is honest and actually convincing. "You've never been more of my husband, or I more of your wife, than in these past six years. Then Blu came along," she gestures to their son, safely and loved in her arms. "You stayed, I stayed. Who would have thought it possible?"

The tip of his lip curls upward, "Almost impossible, Professor. As is everything we tend to get tangled up in."

"You're really not upset?" She was holding her breath, waiting for condemnation. Little did his wife know that it would never come from the likes of him.

"Not in the slightest." He assured, dismissing the notion without one bit of afterthought. "Now, how about you let the boy be and we go find our old room?"

River stilled, skeptical of leaving Blu all on his lonesome. But the boy wouldn't be, not really.

"The Tardis will look after him, dear." The Doctor reminded. "Besides," he shrugged, rising to stand over them both, "maybe there's a bowtie lying around here somewhere." The Doctor reached his hand out and tapped the tip of her nose gently, as he used to, a usually unseen smile spread on his face, "just for you."

 **X**

"Daddy," Susan queries her father, as they pack their things from the royal quarters, "where are we going? I thought we were waiting grandfather to come back."

Blu smiles, patting her head of red curls and catching his wife's eye. Queen Harra M'Daxq stands across the room, looking positively heartbroken.

"Rule one, dearest." He says to their daughter, regretfully. "Rule one."


	6. Be Kind, Aim For My Heart

**_Be Kind, Aim For My Heart (1/1)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood  
 **Summary:** _"You didn't expect me to stay home with the kids all the time, did you?"_ – A sitter comes to help the Doctor take care of the tots, River has someplace to be. (part of the  'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** Um... don' t hate me (although I guess I will take the blame, obviously). You knew the angst had to come eventually. And I'm so sorry. Title comes from the novel 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexandre Dumas

* * *

 _Blu is human-plus._

The sentence is all over his brain lately. Like he can't quite think of anything else. Ever since that day happened, with the youngest Blu (and the youngest post-library wife, as a matter of fact) that he's ever encountered, there'd been a particular upgrade with the chaos that sprinted into his life at any moment's notice.

Blu either turns up, or he doesn't. It's never a _right_ version, either. Never the one he'd spoken to, the eldest of all the Blu's he'd met up with, on that very last time. Highly worrisome, that is. And it's not the whole human-plus business, either. He'd assured River of that already and he'd _meant_ it. It's the uncertainty of it all. This constant growing helplessness that accompanies this want and need to make sure Blu is, in all things, okay. The Parent Bug, his River had called it.

The Doctor never thought he'd be recalling River and himself as the 'easy part' when it comes to timelines but it's impossible (irrational, even) to keep track of anyone at any time whatsoever. If the Doctor were not already gray-haired, this family of his would have _earned_ him those grays.

They are, in every sense, a colossal timey-wimey mess. With first and lasts and in-betweens, loopholes here and pit-stops there. This family of his is scattered all over the place, all these versions, and apparently there is no correct ordering of events. There's only what happens now, and now is happening enough of the time to make him forget there are little things called the past and the future and how they should matter or something.

"Honey," River hollers at him from the kitchen, but the Doctor is currently focused on the task at hand.

He's tinkering away with a present he'd brought for Art (a further along Art, but apparently you get what you get these days) from his latest travels. The item is indeed deemed highly inappropriate for a ten month old to have, but what the hell. It's not like wee Art is his elder brother….

The Doctor leans over and glares at his youngest son, reconsidering the gift in hand for just a moment. "You won't use this to blow something up, will you?" he asks of the toddler strapped safely into his swinging device. "Come to think of it, I actually nicked this," The Doctor confesses, scoffing at the metal item in hand. "Just picked it up and put it in my pocket," he frowns disapprovingly at his own actions and then at the item in question. "I now have actual proof that I've been hanging around your mother for far too many centuries."

Art, in all of his drooling glory, simply smiles and coos at his father like the sun is made from his frown lines. The Doctor nearly hands the gift over just because the boy makes him feel important, and so effortlessly, but his wife is calling for him again. He fishes inside his pocket for a teething ring and makes sure Art has a hold of it before getting up and going to see what River could possibly want.

In the kitchen, he finds River handing over their Jessie into some strangers arms. Oh, how he does wish this didn't keep happening.

"River!" he calls out for her attention, "What are you doing? Who's _that_?"

"That is a she, and she has a name." says the stranger evenly, only glancing at him fleetingly before better positioning Jessie in her arms.

"Don't make a big fuss," River says, heading over and kissing him on the cheek quickly. He spies the vortex manipulator on her wrist and his own hand reaches out reflexively, closing around her wrist and holding it there, his eyebrows raised at her rather ferociously.

"You didn't expect me to stay home with the kids all the time, did you?" His wife grins at him, half amused and then half saddened when she realizes he's not that far along. "Oh," she says softly and brushes her fingers through his gray hairs in an act of comfort. "Still early, then." River kisses him properly, on the mouth this time. It's sweet and soft and tastes a little like _sorry_.

"Spoilers," she whispers, patting him lightly on the cheek, "sweetie."

River tosses him one of her very naughty girl smirks, the sight a reminiscent of the days when she very recklessly jumped out of spaceships and was a gun toting queen. He nearly smiles at the memories it brings forth only just like that, in that very instant instant, she's well and utterly gone from him. He really should have destroyed that little gadget ages ago, before it could ever have become somewhat of a family heirloom.

His attention turns to rest on the strange human woman who's got hold of _his_ Jessie. Middle-aged, she is, going by the show of wrinkles on her eyes. Her hair has dimmed along with that age, too. It's gone a golden-strawberry color where once, he assumed, it must have been brighter.

The woman does not address him but chuckles when Jessie reaches out and places her tiny hand on the woman's cheek. If she can feel his silent studying it seems she's not one bit bothered by it. The stranger kisses Jessie's temple instead, all too consumed in coddling his child. The Doctor more than disapproves of it.

"Hello, you." She says to his child with nothing but pure affection. "I think it has been far too long, don't you?"

The stranger's olive-grey eyes turn to look at him. It's not the age hidden behind those eyes that stir his hearts into familiarity, though that does help. It's that he's used to the young, bright-eyed, unconditional love that's usually found pooling behind them. She seems a completely different person without it.

"Hello, grandfather." Says Susan.

 **X**

River finds herself on the planet Rooxnas 3. It's a skeevy little place where the flagrant come to mingle and make unholy trades for this or that, and the coordinates Susan delivered point her to the most populated drinking establishment. River has to roll her eyes, ever so displeased with the chosen location

"Bugger it all," she mutters, making her way towards the appointed.

She ignores the several eyes that follow her along and pities that she didn't think to bring her sonic blaster with her. If anything starts she'll have to use her bare hands to defend herself, not that she's not capable. Only, the prospect seems more exciting than it should be. She hasn't had a good fight on her hands in far too long.

There, right up at the bar side, she spots him. He sticks out like a lightning rod. Blu always has to her.

River marches straight to him, as she'd long lost the fondness for games lifetimes ago. Finding the stool next to his vacant, she slides in.

"You could have chosen a cleaner bar," she comments disapprovingly. "Cleaner planet, actually."

Her son agrees with a solemn nod before flagging down the barman and ordering his mother's favorite drink. He waits until it is served to her before he turns and she sees him properly.

"You look very young, dear." Says River. "Finally taking tips from me, I see."

"If anyone asks I'll say my mum gave me the idea. To, what was it again?" Blu feigns thoughtfulness. "Ah, ah yes. That's what it was: to freak people out."

River chuckles.

"Where are you, mum?" he asks her.

"In a shoddy looking bar with you." She answers back cheekily.

Her son snorts into his drink but she does not miss the weariness in him. River lays a hand on his shoulder, hoping the weight of it will calm through whatever is troubling him.

"I'm far enough, Blu," she says, voice soft when she asks him the same. "And where might you be?"

The smile on his face proves to be of the rueful sort. He finishes off his drink and pushes the glass away. "I'm old, at my end probably." Blu says, matter-of-fact, and takes a sideway glance at his mother. "I'll be…" but he stops, changing his mind and saying instead, "I'm going to save you soon."

There's a frightened intake of breath that she hadn't expected of herself. Her eyes dart from him to the rest of the bar, blinking away the moistness quickly gathering there.

It makes better sense now. Choosing this place. The lowly do not judge or suspect, and more importantly, this is no place you'd find a doctor.

Faintly she can still hear the echoes of that day, of that life. _Count the shadows_. A chill goes through her at the thought of it. Looking over to her son, her first baby, her heart feels strangled inside of her chest.

 _Please, don't. Don't go there. Don't ever go there._

At least, that's what wants to spill out past her lips. She knows she can't say that, she mustn't. This is fixed and Blu has enough doubts for the both of them, she's sure.

Her son must know her sentiments. He always could read her like that, a great deal better than his father ever could. She gets a brave smile for all of her worrying. All teeth with this face of his so much younger than it should be. He wants to look his best.

He's so much like his father at this moment, she thinks. The nostalgic-idiot one, the one that she married.

"Promise me you'll come back to me, Blu." She begs tearfully, placing her hand above her son's own and giving it a meaningful squeeze.

Blu's smile falters. River imagines not many would have caught that twitch in his façade, but she does, and as much as he is like his father, he is his mother's son as well. She's never damned the sight as she does that moment, because he soldiers on. A tactic she knows well. Blu looks her in the eye, all iron-willed and fake bravado, and he lies.

"If you have my favorite waiting at home for me when I'm done, then I don't see why not." he mutters airily, as if it's that simple. Blu lifts his empty glass and clinks it with hers. "Drink up, mother. The sooner you finish you can treat me to someplace you approve of."

River forces on a smile for him because even in his lying he deserves it. Because this is the beginnings of a goodbye, only she doesn't know how to say it this time.

 **X**

"Is this how it is going to be, then?" the Doctor asks this far-too-old-to-actually-be Susan person setting his Jessie down for a nap. He's got a sleeping toddler in his arms, too. Art had drifted off right on after his sister. The two tots are in sync practically, and the Doctor has never been more thankful for that.

He's set his son down carefully in the crib opposite to his sister and waits for this granddaughter of his to say something. Anything. However, when he doesn't get any response from this _supposed_ Susan, he further accuses.

"So I look around the corner and a new one of you sprouts out of thin air, is that it? My hearts aren't going to be able to take it. I'm old, I'm gray-"

"I've noticed." Susan interrupts his ranting, standing all the way upright once she's satisfied the twins will not wake from their slumber. "You don't change." She says calmly, passively, sparing a glance at him and no more.

Her face is set oddly, he thinks. There are just two big, bulging eyes looking – no, _observing_ him, for but a second. But then, it's as if she remembers she couldn't care less. He wonders, briefly, if maybe she's a robot. Maybe that's why her face is so bloody infuriatingly blank.

Susan grows bored of his silent musings and off she goes, heading back downstairs, and without his permission.

"What's that supposed to mean?" the Doctor pesters on about her previous comment, following after her like she's pulling at him with strings.

"What's what supposed to mean?" she calls back to him, not stopping for him or his questions. He follows her into the kitchen where she fetches herself a glass of water.

"Oh, you know very well what I'm on about!" the Doctor says, far more easily disgruntled than he thought he could be by this indifference act Susan is set on playing. "Don't spin things around and around, all nonsensical-like. That doesn't work with this one." He points to his own face. "If you really were my son's daughter," he goads, "you'd know that by now."

Susan blinks at him, utterly unimpressed or affected by his attempts. She finishes off her glass of water, staring at him the entirety of the time and rinsing the glass clean again. She places it back in the cupboard from where she plucked it.

"You don't change." She says again.

There's something in the way she says it, in the way she walks right past him like he's nothing to her, that makes him certain that he's done something wrong. Something he can't fix. And, now, that just won't do.

 **X**

"I, well… I may have cheated." Admits Blu to his mother, when they are sitting in on a sound check for a very popular rock band, somewhere in the 1970s. The band were just about to rehearse one of Blu's favorite songs. The opening notes played and soon the lead singer joined in.

 _Well, we all need someone we can lean on_

 _And if you want it, you can lean on me_

River give her attention to her eldest, her silence only prompting him to continue.

"I met granddad." Confesses Blu. "And gran, too, a bit. From far away, really. They were together. Just moving into the house dad got them, the one with the Tardis blue colored door. Amy was inside, doing god knows what, making a call perhaps. But I helped Rory carry a sofa off from the moving truck. He thanked me for it. Shook my hand and everything." Blu huffed out a laugh, marveling, "I really do have his nose."

The peace on his face gave away so much. It was childish at heart. Innocent, but speculative. Awestruck and profoundly moved. Mostly, it told of a longing that had finally been fulfilled. He composed himself before peering back at his mother, pursing his lips and readying to defend against a scolding.

"I know, alright? And before you go on about it, I must assure you that I was careful! I left before Amy could even catch glimpse of me. They didn't know anything, and they wouldn't have had an inkling even if they could have guessed on it. I swear it on my life. On yours, even. I was that good."

 _Yeah, we all need someone we can dream on_

 _And if you want it, baby, well you can dream on me_

River found herself speechless. Her father and her son. Together for one instant in time. His eyes were pleading for her to be alright with this. For her to tell him that it was okay. That it wasn't a reckless and dangerous decision to have willingly crossed timelines like this. As Blu very well knows it was. But her boy, her first, she knew well.

She'd accepted long ago that he would never bow to what was right over what suited his purposes. That is what made him dangerous. Blu had always been the less accepting of the three of her children over the responsibilities attached to time and therefore he had been all the more careless in following them.

Blu was not like his father in that sense, and that truth always drove the Doctor furious. Well, when they were finally better acquainted with who the other was, that is.

In truth, Blu had always been _her_ son. Like a river in all its might, he had his unpredictability. His current proved to move strong and unyielding, no matter what stood in his path. Blu would either flow through what was in front of him without much a bother or he would engulf his surroundings whole. There had never been an in-between with him and only age calmed his choice of direction.

At this very moment, age is what has him flowing ever so willingly.

 _Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on, yeah_

 _And if you want it, baby, well you can bleed on me_

"Anyway, I'm not sorry." He lifted his face, chin up high and proud, but it's his eyes that betray him. There was fear there. Dread. There was the telling of a man grown old, making dangerous choices because he was running out of opportunities to keep on making them.

"I had to, mum." He said, his voice almost repentant. Not for going and seeing and doing, no – never, she knew – but for perhaps disappointing her with that audacity of his to do as he pleased. "I had to know them, see them, for myself. Just once. Before…."

Blu trailed off. He looked to those young-again, trembling hands of his. They seemed to sit so useless on his lap and he bunched them into fists, willing them to stop their shaking. They did not.

River moved her own hands, older than his would ever be, and gripped at them tightly. Warming them. Sheltering them, while she could.

"They would have loved you," She says to him, smiling as a tear rolls down her cheek. "Unconditionally and forever. As I do. As I always will."

"And I you." Blu chokes out, crumbling in front of her eyes like she's not seen him do since he was but a boy. Her little boy. Looking younger than he has in years, when in truth he's so much older than he ever has been. Her baby.

River takes him into her arms and says, "I'm sorry, my love. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Please, know I am. _Know_ that, and know that I love you and nothing will stop me from bringing you home when this is all said and done. Do you hear me? Nothing."

"Bugger the noble speeches, mum," retorts Blu. Accepting of his mother's arms and love, all but her words. Hugging her just as tight as she's hugging him. "Just bloody say thank you and let me get on with it, eh?"

River manages to laugh through her tears at his dry commentary. She wants to carry on hearing them for all of her existence. She wants to never, ever let him go.

 _Bleed it alright, baby_

 _Bleed it alright_

 **X**

When River makes it back to her home, she feels guilty and hollow and an utter failure. How can she mother Art and Jessie, protect them, when she can do nothing to protect Blu from what awaits him? How can she even call herself a mother, knowing what she knows will happen? She has no right. None at all.

Susan can't, or won't, look her in the eye when informing her that the twins have been fed, taken a nap, and are now in the playroom with their father.

River knows it is hard on her. Reliving this. If anyone knows of such a thing, and intimately, it's River. But she can't help Susan. She can barely help anyone at this point.

She hugs Susan before the girl goes and the hug is returned. Perhaps that's something.

River does indeed find The Doctor in the playroom with their children. He's on the floor, back supported up against the wall. Jessie on one lap and Art on the other, yet when he sees her again, she knows that he must know. Whether he's worked it all out on his own or he's just grasped at the makings of it, he knows.

"What have I done, River," he asks of her.

So brokenhearted and listless he looks, there, stuck in a room with two toddlers of their own flesh and blood, alive and safe for the time being. He is shiny and new still, with their babies at his feet, and yet he's caught suspended in the web of the future that stares him in the face, taunting him, never giving him reprieve of what awaits. He, her husband, the father of her children, so often resigned to the monstrous land of not knowing.

"What did I do?" he begs of her, and she doesn't know how she's supposed to say it. She doesn't even realize she's answered him until the tears on his face serve only as a mirroring of her own.

* * *

 **AN2:** _btw, the band Blu and River were observing were the Rolling Stones during the European_

 _Tour of 1970 and they were rehearsing the song 'Let It Bleed'._


	7. Help, I Need Somebody (Not Just Anybody)

**_Help, I Need Somebody (Not Just Anybody) - 1/1_**  
G  
Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald  
 **Summary:** _In the end, one word suits all, he supposes. "Home."_ – Clara hasn't seen the Doctor in four months and wants to know just where the hell he's been, the Doctor finally tells her. (part of the  'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** Short AF, I know. Title from the Beatles song. This takes place right after the last part of this series, though he's the Doctor, so obviously he forgoes checking the landing time. Oops.

* * *

Clara approaches the door to her apartment, painfully relieved that this is the last set of groceries she's carrying in. She's even tempted to stroke the damned doorway, much like the Doctor strokes his console. And she would, if only she hadn't an armful of groceries that needed balancing.

She winces, the last few trips making her back ache from the weight she's had to carry, and kicks the door shut after her. There is a brief struggle between too much space and too little Clara from the doorway all the way to the kitchen, which leads to Clara dumping the last remaining bags onto the table without much care to what's inside.

Sighing in relief, Clara then fetches herself a nice tall glass of water. She mentally checks off the other chores that still need doing. She's done the weekly grocers visit and paid off all of her overdue bills. Those tended to stack up on her faster than they should when she was off gallivanting into space with an alien madman.

So caught up in her silent introspection that Clara fails to take notice when another body joins her in the room. Nor does she startle when he begins going through the bags of groceries she's bought rather noisily.

"Why did you buy these?" the Doctor asks of her, scowling at the knockoffs he's pulled from one of the bags.

"Don't squish them like that!" Clara snaps at him. "They taste the same as the real ones," She maintains, marching over to take the sweets from him and hugging them to her chest before he does something horrible like throw them out the window or something. "Besides," she added, "you don't have to like them, _I_ do. My house, my rules."

The Doctor continues to go through her groceries, judging every single purchase with a dissatisfied groan or another added frown line, up until the glass of water slips from Clara's grasp and comes crashing onto her kitchen floor.

She's turns towards the Doctor, facing him, wide-eyed and speechless. Clara takes tiny steps over to him, actually grabbing at his bony arms before she realizes that he's actually there, in her kitchen.

"Doctor," says Clara, a faint smile appearing. "You're here. You're really… really here."

The Doctor's blesses her with that odd half-smile thing he does now, nodding at her in confirmation. All has gone quiet around them and Clara's just so glad to see him again. So thankful, that she has the urge to hug him tight and never let him go, only her hand and her temper seem to have other ideas.

Without much thought, that palm of hers is up and moving and slapping him hard enough to make him see stars.

"Where have you been?!" Clara shouts. The calm of their moment had passed and she's gone absolutely livid. "It's been _four_ months! You asked me to leave, _you_ asked that of me, and I accepted it. Because you said you'd come back for me! I _believed_ you! Again! Low and behold, that turned out to be nothing but another set of lies."

Her palms push at him, shoving him away. The aggravation behind her actions attempt to hide away a world of worry but the tears wetting her cheeks, damp and furious, tell him all he needs to know.

"I've been worried out of my mind here, stuck on Earth with not a word from you or about you! Not knowing if you've blown that insect head of yours off on some planet or just, I don't know, decided you were better off alone. Do you know what that does to a person?" Clara inquired. "To have your best friend just literally drop off the planet, and have no idea what's gone on. To not know where they are or if they are even alive at all?"

The Doctor can only stare, unable to right these things that have hurt her. He waits, silent and regretful for Clara fretting over him in this way.

Clara ignores the bags spread all over her kitchen table and pulls out a chair. She sits down. From the way she's looking at him, he's not sure if he's supposed to do the same.

"You're going to tell me everything, do you hear me? Everything you've been hiding, or you go away for good. And this time you stay gone, forever." She blinks, suddenly remorseful, as if her demands were spoken too coldly, options given too harshly.

"You are my best friend, Doctor." She admits, softer. "A friend I'd possibly be able to forgive anything of, but you tell me the truth or you leave me alone." Her big round eyes are pleading of him, "Do we understand each other?"

The Doctor pulls out the chair opposite of her, sits, and gives her a single nod. Clara inhales deeply, calming the rush of emotions that have played out. Her first question is right to the point.

"Where the hell have you been?"

The Doctor thinks of all the answers he could give. There's the terribly long and truthful version, the promptly shortened with an awful lot of side variety version, the technical to-the-point (aka Clara won't notice I'm lying if I use small and sharply descriptive sentences) one, and lastly, the cleverly evasive go-to version: Rule One.

In the end, one word suits all, he supposes.

"Home." He answers, finally, though it is more complicated than that. Infinitely so. But it's the answer she seeks, and Clara deserves a bit of truth for once.

The name of his home planet comes out of Clara's lips in a whisper, as if she's cautious to speak of it out loud, even and especially to him. His hearts are pained by her drawn conclusion, how it has only formed because everything is tangled up in lies he's told to her in the past.

"No, no." the Doctor shakes his head, determined to clear up the wrong assumption quickly. There is too much to tell her and not enough time, there is never enough. "No, Clara," he clarifies. It all gets stuck in his throat for a moment, before he's forcibly swallowing it down. It burns. "I don't mean Gallifrey."

He starts with Christmas. Finding Wee Susan, his _granddaughter_ , in her crib. And he tells Clara of a River older than he's ever seen her. A River who is not dead, but instead alive and out from the Library.

He tells Clara about a family, his family, that is both magnificent and terrifying, each of the descriptions being prone to happen at the same time, within the same meeting.

When he tells her of Blu, or tries to, he tells Clara of what she can know. That Blu is his son with River, their first son. That he's more familiar with the adult version and has only come across a child version once. The Doctor doesn't know it all, but he is careful not to speak of anything that concerns Clara and Blu specifically. It makes some bits tricky, but he does what he can. Explains it the best that he can. He leaves out the information that Susan is Blu's daughter, not sure if it would change anything that needs to happen, but remains positive that it would make Clara's eyes bulge thrice their normal size.

He tells her of Art and Jessie, too. His and River's twins, whom he meets sporadically, at every age, with absolutely no warning of it. "They are very much the calm to Blu's storm," he describes to her.

"Well said, Oncoming Storm." Clara quips, not one bit surprised that the son is described to be as untamable as the father. Or mother, actually.

Eventually, the Doctor arrives at the worst of it, the most recent. The trouble that is looming in Blu's near future, one that he is no closer to stopping. Because he doesn't know how and he won't know, not for a long time, after it has already happened.

"It has something to do with getting River out of the Library," he utters quietly. "That's all I can gather from what no one will tell me."

Clara reaches out and grabs a hold of his hand, giving it a squeeze. "You'll fix it." she says, sounding so convinced of it that he hasn't the heart to go against her faith in him. "He's your son, so we both know you'll cheat on it if needs be."

That brings a well needed chuckle from him. "Oh, Clara," he sighs, closing his eyes tiredly, "Clara, my Clara. If you say so, then what choice do I really have?" he deadpans.

Clara giggles, "That's right. I'm the boss. You've absolutely no say in it."

He thanks her.

"It will all be fine." She assures, letting go of his hand and standing to clean the broken glass on her kitchen floor. She also starts tending to the groceries.

After two bags are empty Clara looks around at all the others that need putting away. Then she looks back at the Doctor, sitting there in her kitchen, pulled far away in his thoughts and his worries. They make his wrinkles more prominent and the utter hopelessness of the situation has made his shoulders sag forward, drooping. The devastation is there, hanging onto him with no plans of letting go, and it can't be ignored. She won't let it be.

Deciding the fate of her groceries within seconds, she then starts blustering the Doctor and herself towards wherever he's parked the Tardis this time, declaring herself as hungry and craving some form of space food _pronto_.

The Doctor smiles, grateful for Clara supplying him a distraction so generously, and says, "I know just the place."


	8. Some Things Are Worth

**_Some Things Are Worth Getting Your Heart Broken For (1/1)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood, ft. Sarah Jane Smith  
 **Summary:** _"Blu Williams," she curses him, "just how many times must I tell you not to sneak up on me like that?!"_ – Blu visits his Godmother. (part of the 'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** It has been a while, I haven't given up on this series I SWEAR. Chapter title from Sarah Jane's quote in the DW episode 'School Reunion.' References to the Brigadier  & Sarah Jane Smith's adopted son Luke occur in this part. This was somewhat lighthearted (I think) and serves another glimpse into how the Doctor & River's timey-wimey family has reached out into the universe and claimed certain things of the past. Please do forgive any mistakes. Enjoy, maybe/hopefully?

* * *

Sarah Jane lies in bed, blinking at the ceiling of her bedroom, quite resentful that she's still awake at this hour. And it is truly an ungodly hour, her tired bones can heartily attest to that.

There's a terrible clatter outside, one she cannot possibly be expected to get any rest out of. Aftermaths of the storm predicted earlier on the telly. It proves to be more than this tatty old house is prepared for, worn as it has become throughout the years. It's old and creaky at every hinge, thoroughly lived in. As its longest inhabitant – she supposes. A good cup of tea would serve her well at a time like this. It would calm her restlessness surely. Yes, indeed that would do the trick.

Carefully, Sarah Jane tosses the covers away from herself and scoots towards the edge of the bed, slipping on the pair of slippers that await her on the floor. She's not as young as she used to be after all so caution has become one of her best friends. She dons an old fluffy robe to keep the chill from her bones while she's at it, having no intention of catching a cold either.

As she moves through her home she is reminded how it has become so quiet these days and Sarah Jane frowns the nearer she gets to the kitchen. So silent her house has become in fact, that with Luke gone, living his life as children go off and do, she's become so very lonely in his absence and it becomes bigger and scarier to face now than it has been in the daylight hours.

 _He's not her little boy anymore,_ she reminds her loneliness, trying to soothe it, calm it as she cannot calm the storm outside. _He is a man grown now, and he can't stay with his mother forever now, can he?_

Coming into the kitchen area, finally, the sadness threatens to be more than she can bear. Her fingers search blindly for the light switch. The lights brighten the room and she finds her kitchen not as deserted as she'd expected.

"Oh my goodness!" shouts Sarah Jane, a hand coming to rest atop her breast, as if she were to keep the heart in her chest from jumping up and out.

Her uninvited guest remains not one bit surprised by her reaction. From the smile plastered on his face, he seems to rather delight in frightening the living daylights out of her.

"Blu Williams," she curses him. "Just how many times must I tell you not to sneak up on me like that?!"

Blu had the decency to exchange the wide smile on his face for an expression slightly more repentant of his action. Blu clears his throat before rising from his current place at her table to address her properly.

"Apologies, Godmother," Said Blu, velvety sweet, and placing a quick kiss on her brow. "I merely though to drop in on you and somehow it completely left my mind how you're not particularly keen on receiving house guests unannounced."

"Nor am I too fond of games, however that I'm sure you well know. Not at these hours, Blu." Says his Godmother sternly, "I'm not as young as I used to be, you know."

"I really didn't mean to catch you like this, off guard and such," Blu insists, once he's set a kettle on. "I only intended…"

Blu drifts off, not finishing his sentence. Sarah Jane squints at her Godson, highly qualified by now at reading Time Lords when they're so obviously brooding.

"How's that mother of yours?" Sarah Jane prompts and Blu looks to be more than thankful for this diversion. "I got a card from her this past Christmas," she grins, so does Blu. "Well, more like four. You were lacking in all but one."

"Mum's got her hands full." Blu answers, not daring to meet her eye.

"Yes," Sarah Jane's mouth twists into a frown and Blu notices the longing of a much young woman coming to life with her words. "I imagine a life shared with your father would never prove dull," she muses. "Not for a single second."

They wait for the tea to ready and once they each have a cup, both more than halfway finished, they carry on with the conversation. The tea warming his Godmother's stomach helps her to smile again. She muses and Blu listens, genuinely enthralled by her retelling and she eager to be telling them.

"You and your father have that in common, you know? Both bustling about with marvelously mad, otherworldly intentions. Leaving the planning bit to come to full fruition at the last possible second."

Blu tips his head to the side slightly, "Is this you complaining?"

"Goodness, no!" Sarah Jane exclaimed. "Besides, it gave that father of yours the excuse he needed to come back into my life, and the Brigadier's. Your father's always had this nonsensical impression that he must duck out of our lives, for our own good, once the adventures are good and done with. I may have contributed to that," she confesses, guiltily. "One of the last times I saw him, well, perhaps I should say the first… after the last."

Sarah Jane smiles.

"He was young," she tells him, a girlish flush upon her round cheeks. "He was pretending to be a physics teacher, mind you, and I…" a pause. "I, so foolishly, I told him something. Something I'm sure he misinterpreted, as I did not exactly elaborate. I said it to… to help him decide on his actions. To help him _see_ how it is for us, for those of us he leaves behind without another glance. You know how he can be. Always making the big decisions by himself. And I was trying to remind him that he didn't always have to. That we who love him are always there. All he needs is to find us, to come back and we'll be there."

She fell silent, pulled away for a moment, lost in memories that could not be changed.

"Everything has it's time and everything ends. That's what I told him. Love, life, etcetera. I was making a point, yes, but I did fail to mention that family doesn't work like that. Not always. It's not that… that _simple_. That just because something is over, that doesn't necessarily mean it is at an end." She shrugged desperately. "Especially when that family is his. So expansive we all are, located at every point in space and time. If he only that man would just _ask_."

Blu had heard things. Telling of the nature his father had exhibited before Blu even existed. The fact that there was a time his father indulged in the habit of running away and leaving behind those he claimed to care for once they no longer would (or could) travel with him. It's hard for Blu to imagine his father doing such a thing. He had never known _his_ father as someone who would run out on those he cared for. His father did not opt for easy over what was right, no matter the circumstance being of a personal nature or otherwise. If he were being entirely truthful, that sounded more like something Blu himself would pull rather than his own father.

"I believe your mother is the only one who's gone and changed such nonsense," Sarah Jane interrupted. "Of course he was full of complaints when your mother demanded he come back and ask us, Alistair and I, to be your godparents."

Blu smiled widely, knowing that story and feeling prideful over such a happening, "She settles for nothing but the best, my mum."

Sarah Jane mirrored his expression, "That she does, my dearest. River Williams deserves nothing but the best, and your father knew that. He told us so, too. And so he delivered." His Godmother extended her hand and Blu reached to meet her half-way, grasping her palm in his and squeezing lightly. "I'm so thankful to her, because without their union, neither of you would be in my life again."

"I have to say I agree." And he did. Wholeheartedly.

"Do me a favor then," Sarah Jane begged of him, looking younger and shrewder than all of her years. "Whatever it is, whatever you have planned, no one has ever gotten anywhere alone. Not one soul. Do you hear me, Blu? You will remember that, won't you?"

 _And yet everything has it's time_.

Only he answers: "Of course, Godmother."

No need to worry her, after all.

 _And yet everything ends._


	9. Fear Can Bring You Home 1

**_Fear Can Bring You Home (1/?)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood, with Clara Oswald and appearances by the 10th Doctor  
 **Summary:** _The Doctor practically itches with the possibilities of this meeting. What will he find behind those doors? Who? How old would they be? All the unknowns he could want await him inside that house, and how desperately he craves collision with such endless amount of infinities…. Then he glimpses over at Clara._ – Clara's first visit(s). (part of the 'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** Set specifically Post the XMAS special 'Last Chrismtas'  & during 'Forest of The Dead'; this part of the series has followed in the footsteps of the others (or that of which canon has suggested) containing much of the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey lifestyle that the Doctor and River have been prone to experience. May it make enough sense to be understood although it happens to take place in all of time&space like 112% of the time. Oh and the chapter title is a quote from the DW episode 'Listen' (8x04).

* * *

 _Fear is like a companion. A constant companion, always there. But that's okay, because fear can bring us together. Fear can bring you home._

* * *

They are greeted by an icy pale blue-hued likeness to snow covering the grounds when the Doctor and Clara step out from inside the Tardis. Creamy (obviously) Earth-bought white lights dangle from the rooftop of the home the Doctor has been popping in and out of. Staying, but not quite living in yet. Going by the rather large decorated tree he spies blinking various colors from behind one of the front windows it would seem that he's landed both he and Clara on another Christmas.

He should hate the holiday. His experience with the season as of late was not what one would call a happy one. However the prospect of this particular Christmas, spent in this specific setting, among this specific company? He finds this meeting more than welcomed and wholeheartedly awaits whatever is about to play out with open arms.

The Doctor practically itches with the possibilities of this meeting. What will he find behind those doors? _Who_? How old would they be? All the unknowns he could want await him inside that house, and how desperately he _craves_ collision with such endless amount of infinities….

Then he glimpses over at Clara.

The excitement in him wanes at the sight of her expression. Clara is frowning deeply and tears have gathered in her eyes, just a second away from spilling. He hadn't realized just how _much_ he'd wanted to share this with her, this newly found and preserved happiness; his family. Scarcely able to wait for her own reactions to everyone and everything that resided here, too, in this place in the universe that stood tucked away and in waiting. Particles of both he and River that wander freely out in the universe. _Ours_ , his hearts all but proclaim, thudding with pride and love and fear and hope, alive against the cage-like building that houses both those hearts of his inside of his chest.

Sharing these lost pieces of himself with Clara, pieces have come back to him and multiplied tenfold? It really is all that has been missing.

"Hey," he nudges his companion gently, his hand seeking out and closing around her own, squeezing. "You okay?"

Clara comes to and blinks up at him. She makes quick work of fixing her less than enthusiastic expression. A too large smile is on her face and she's blinking back the tears rapidly.

"I'm fine." She lies. "C'mon then, Time Lord." She coaxes, dragging him along with her, starting in on a steady march through the not-exactly-snow snow, announcing, "Time to meet the fam."

It feels like it takes several lifetimes when they finally stand face-to-face with the front door and Clara's grip on his hand has turned vice-like. The Doctor is burdened remembering then, sickeningly, at _why_.

As he'd been recalling upon their landing, their most recent Christmas shared hadn't been an overly pleasant experience. Odd alien face-suckers of death and Saint Nick himself. And _Danny Pink._

She had just lost everything and for a while there, within a puncture in time, they had finally matched. They'd aligned. They had nothing left to lose, the both of them. It was the beginning of endings, and they'd never run faster. But now he's brought her along, at forefront, sticking her nose right into the sum of all that he's miraculously gained back.

Clara had always proven to be particularly stubborn and willful in the face of his expectations, his Impossible Girl. Looking upon her now, he finds that he cannot do this to her. Not _now_. It's not right. The timing is off and painfully… so painfully _cruel_. She needs time to heal, for him to help her heal, and he needs to give her that. This can wait. Either way, his family has somewhat been built on the waiting. They will forgive him for it, that he knows.

"Clar-" he attempts, but Clara's already raised her fist and started banging on the front door before he can put a stop to it. Loud, insistent raps against the thick wooden surface, barking up a racket no one could claim ignorance of unless they were at a complete loss of hearing.

It is at that moment, filled with an overwhelming amount of panic, guilt that suffocates and cuts off any possible arguments he could have on the matter that the Doctor's only option is to swallow them down, for the door is being unlocked and opened.

His focus shifts to whomever it is, just on the other side, pulling the door back and ready to extend an invitation. To let both he and Clara inside, to join in their festivities. The Doctor goes cold all over when she is revealed.

 **X**

Blu spots her immediately. Her face and her curls are the same as the day he was born, only she's young, and _he_ – this version of the Doctor – is even younger. It's almost like a dream, or a nightmare. Depending on how one would look at it.

He is currently pressed flat against an opposing wall, sticking well into the corners and blending with the darkness, making it ever more impossible to count them all. To count the shadows. Still, it is her voice that calls to him, lulls his attention and gives him the illusion of safety. The voice that has always made him braver than he really is…. _Mother._

She's standing far out of grasp with her back to him, explaining to this Anita woman, one of the others to accompany his mother on this expedition, on how she longs for _her_ Doctor to have been there. He shares the sentiment with her wanting wholly and wishes, too, that his father were there. For her, for him – both are ultimately one in the same, aren't they? And he damns the universe. In forsaking them in either their past or their future, as they seem bound to be intricately joined at the root and yet despairingly separate once in bloom.

"Now my Doctor," his mother describes, with such longing in her voice that Blu wants to step out and reveal himself. If only to gather his mother in his arms and tell her it's alright. It's all going to be alright, he's here now and he won't leave her. However it is his father's voice ( _HIS_ father, the one with the stare and the eyebrows and the gray hairs) that springs to mind without effort. _Do as you're told, Blu_ – the voice echoes, resonating so clearly in his mind that Blu almost believes his father to be there, right at his side, all the while knowing that he isn't.

At this instance, Blu listens. He doesn't move a muscle. He waits.

"I've seen whole armies turn and run away." The voice may sound even to anyone's ears, but Blu hears the unspoken. Too much heart, so wondrous his mother sounds that not one soul can doubt her love for this man. For _their_ Doctor. "And he'd just swagger off," she continues on, "back to his Tardis and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Doctor in the Tardis. Next stop, everywhere."

"Spoilers!" The voice is sharp and reprimanding. So foreign the voice is that Blu slides even deeper into the darkness of the corner he's chosen to shield him. "Nobody can open a Tardis by snapping their fingers." Says the Doctor, this one that's come upon his mother's call. So young and unknowing. "It doesn't work like that."

"It does for the Doctor," River assures. Confident as ever despite the vulnerability she's been caught upon indulging. It is a confidence that Blu recognizes, knowing what it means, and so he readies himself for whatever reply this younger Doctor is going to give, positive that his mother will have one at the ready also. A response that will, at any turn, best the Doctor's own. It's what she does, his mum.

"I am the Doctor!"

"Yeah," quips River, adding: "Someday."

Hidden away in his deathly shadowed corner, with the Vashta Nerada due to be on him any moment now, Blu indulges the surge of admiration he has for this woman. This not-yet mother of his. She is amazing.

 **X**

The child before him seems the exact replica, the Doctor muses to himself, and he wonders why he never saw it before or if he'd ignored it on purpose. His mouth twists unhappily in the face of such a confrontation. The ghost of a little girl he never had the chance at truly saving from the spaceman in Utah, peering up at the pair of uninvited guests. Then he notices the coloring. Jessie's hair has taken a bit of Amy's coloring, not Rory's dirty blond. Her locks blend between a honeyed red, golden and orange; _brighter than sunflowers_ might just about cover it. The past melts away. He smirks.

"You made it!" his daughter exclaims happily, moving out from the doorway and throwing herself at the Doctor. Her strong wiry arms encircle his ribs and pull him close for a rather constricting hug. The Doctor, stunned, turns a wide-eyed glare over to Clara, who is traitorously biting her bottom lip in order to keep from laughing out right.

His young lass doesn't relent however, so he pats her head a few times until Jessie releases him, looking up and gifting at him River's warm smile coming from her own childlike face. The smile proves too precious a sight. It warms the bleakness of the outside weather and thaws away at his reluctance to show any form of affection openly almost at an instant.

The Doctor smiles down at his daughter, Clara standing by as a witness be damned. His roughened fingertip traces the curve of Jessie's nose quickly and the girl cackles, nose crinkling up in all her childish happiness. The likeness to her mother may be great, but there is also so much of one Amelia Pond in their own Jessica Williams that his voice wobbles when asking: "You're mother in? Your brothers?" His hearts feel so full and heavy they could burst.

"Art is making ice castles out back and Blu's not here, but Mummy's making custard! Art loves custard, like you did once," informs his little lass, taking hold of his hand and pulling him into the house. He glances back at Clara to make sure she's following after them, she is.

Taking in this information bit by bit, the Doctor eventually tilts his head in direction to his companion. "Jessie," he calls gently, "this is my friend Clara."

Jessie sighs ever so indulgently, rolling her eyes at her father in a way that implies she's been told who Clara is a thousand times over. "Daddy," says Jessie, "don't be silly! We _know_ who Clara is."

"Spoilers, Jessica dear." River reprimands, a glorious sight when she appears from inside the kitchen. "Hello, husband." She greets, "and Clara. Lovely to see you again."

"River, hey." Replies Clara, her big brown eyes scan over River as if processing that the woman is actually here, in front of them. Alive and well. "It's been a while."

"Indeed it has," agrees the Wife. "And I see you've met our Jessica. She's gotten a bad case of loose lips lately, haven't you love?" River directs to the young girl. Jessie slightly reddens at her mother's question.

The Doctor's furry brows lift comically, making for his hairline. "Is this true, Jessica?"

Jessie shrugs half-heartedly, guilty only not truly regretful of her actions. "Blu says it doesn't matter much," the girl explains. "He says if things are supposed to happen, they'll happen anyway, whether we do the right thing or not."

Clara is genuinely startled when the Doctor turns on the spot and starts cursing abruptly, switching from English to what she can only assume is his own native Gallifreyan, as it sounds complete gibberish to her ears. He marches off and away from where they stand and Clara thinks she can hear footsteps on stairs. She turns her attention back to River, hoping for an explanation of any kind only Jessie's mother is busy catching her daughter's eye.

"Sweetheart," states River gently. "You do know that when Blu says these things it is almost always in hopes to make your father furious, don't you?"

Jessie nods solemnly, eyes downcast. River sends the girl on her way, out to help her brother with the ice castles.

"C'mon, Clara." The Doctor barks out, inches away from her ear, and Clara jumps at his sudden proximity. His hand closes around her wrist and starts pulling at her like some sort of rag doll. Clara would smack him only she's too busy stumbling over her own two feet.

"I'll be back in a flash, dear," the Doctor directs that to his Wife. "I must have a word with our son."

"Happy Christmas!" River shouts after them, ducking back into the kitchen and not one bit bothered by the turn of events. As if nothing but the usual is taking place; the Doctor dragging Clara back to the Tardis, as though they hadn't just arrived.

 **X**

Re-entering the kitchen, River grins at the sight of him. Older. Hair a fluffy white mess atop his head and still dressed in his bed clothes and his old man robe.

"They're gone," she states.

"I sounded very young." Is all her husband offers, voice a soft rumble. He's not yet fully awake, River knows. The Doctor is standing at the window with the view to the backyard, eyes fixed on Jessie and Art and their buildings of an ice castle saga. They'd nominated him acting the ice-warrior, out to destroy their castles, and they – the twin force – defenders of it.

River moves towards her husband and hugs him from behind, "You knew they'd be coming?"

The Doctor doesn't answer, instead opting to sigh in mourning. He is absolutely dreading going out in the cold as his twins have demanded of him.

"Coffee?" River suggests.

"Unless you might want to kill me again," he deadpans. "I'd be most gracious."

River chuckles, "This from the Oncoming Storm. _Old Man_ Storm, more like."

He grumbles about her cheek, but technically he doesn't disagree.

* * *

 **TBC**


	10. Fear Can Bring You Home 2

**_Fear Can Bring You Home (2/?)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood, with Clara Oswald and appearances by the 10th Doctor  
 **Summary:** _A hand settles on the Doctor's shoulder and before he can be spooked to hell over it, he comes face to face with none other than his son. Blu Williams. Just a glance at his son and he knows it's the Blu he's been seeking out for months._ \- Clara's first visit(s) cont.  & silence in the Library. Eventually. (part of the 'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** The quote used in the beginning of this part is from the fifth episode in series 8 which I believe is called 'Time Heist.' Enjoy and all that jazz.

* * *

 _Did you see why we came? Why we're here? (…) They have no power over you now. You can do exactly what you want to do now. Exactly what you've always wanted to do._

* * *

The Doctor lets go of Clara's hand the second the Tardis doors come clamoring shut behind the pair of them. He's off to hover over his console and pilot his ship to take flight. Clara pouts her discontent at leaving so abruptly and wanders over to his side, hoping to catch his eye for an explanation of sorts. She's curious, only the Doctor is too focused on their journey onward to spare her a glance.

It's at that very moment that Clara understands the gravity of this situation. Whatever it is, wherever he's taking them, it is more important than he's willing to admit. That, and he's not sent her home. He needs her, she realizes. Clara wanders back, allowing him to get on with it and keeping herself at a good distance. She watches him closely yet she's mindful not to draw his attention away from his task.

For the time being, alone with her thoughts, Clara reckons that she gets it. The tiny amount of time she had spent in the presence of the Doctor's family, it had been a whirlwind and a half. From the second they had landed up until he'd gone and dragged her off, the setting had been abuzz with… what's that word he used? Timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly? Yes, that was it. Timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly goodness. There was no helping being caught up in it all. To be held suspended in the glorious uncertainty of it, which left her curiosity in wanting.

If she can't help wanting to jump into all of _that_ headfirst, then she can only imagine what it must be like for him. The Doctor, her best friend. The man who likes to play it crass and unfeeling, but she knows him. Knows enough to know that deep down, beneath the scowling and the attack eyebrows, he simply cannot help himself.

Besides, it's all packaged there for him. The destination is existing, safe and preserved. He has only to run to and from. It's infinite and it's _there_ , so long as the Doctor knows the way home. Because that's what it is at the end of the day. _Home_. He may not have planned for it nor did he expect for it to manifest in such a way, but it is wholly and undoubtedly _his._ It's what he has been searching for and whether the Doctor chooses to acknowledge it in his hearts yet or not, well… Clara decides that part is completely irrelevant.

Perhaps it's her job to help him come to grips with that. She'll knock some sense into him alight. She'll guide him there herself if it's the last thing she does. Smiling, Clara finds she'd take that responsibility on in a heartbeat, as she rather likes the idea of it. Of the Doctor having a home of his own. He deserves one more than anyone.

"Now, Old Girl," she overhears the Doctor address his ship. "I think it's time for a one-way trip, and no side stops."

Clara holds her breath, watching on in trepidation and a bubbling excitement as The Doctor's fingertips disappear into the telepathic circuits. The Tardis lights above and around the inside walls start to burst. They spark outward like angry fireworks. Harsh and alive, dimming out slowly. Quietly. As if the energy is slipping out and away right in front of her eyes. The likeness reminds her much of dying stars.

Once the Tardis takes choice of their next destination, the ship jolts in sudden motion. Clara only just manages to reach out and grasp at the railings in order to stay standing upright.

 **X**

There is a final jerky stillness signaling they've stopped though the console room has gone pitch dark, like the power's been sucked out somehow.

"We've landed," Clara hears the Doctor say. Movement, which she assumes is him.

"Doctor?" she calls out, not feeling safe enough to let go of the railing or wander about either. "Where exactly are we?"

"No idea," comes the Doctor's response. He sounds closer than he was before and Clara can hear his footsteps, heavy and unsure. "The power inside the Tardis had been burnt out," she hears him pulls at levers and press at buttons to no avail. "By something, or rather some _where_." He explains, sounding unreasonably giddy to her ears. "I'm going to take a look." He announces. "Stay here."

She nods in the darkness, only to remember that the Doctor can't actually see her. Confirming his orders aloud Clara receives an encouraging pat on her shoulder for it. She wants to reach out, to grab at him, but she senses he's gone from her side now. Dim light spills inside the Tardis when the Doctor unlocks the front doors and pulls them open. The light frames his face, though Clara can hardly read his expression from this angle. The Doctor, as if sensing her attention, looks back at her. He nods before stepping out and darkness surrounds her once again.

The first thing that pops up is fear, which she knows to be absolutely ridiculous. Clara knows deep down in her heart that she has nothing to fear from inside the safety of the Doctor's blue box but that doesn't make her any less scared. Slowly, Clara gathers her courage and takes itty-bitty steps in the direction she assumes will lead her to the console board. It is not as easy as one would hope. Not in the dark.

She stands alone in the Tardis yet there is a chill permeating the room that sparks doubt, leaving Clara feeling the exact opposite of the word. Reaching her hands out in front of her, heart in her throat, Clara's movements become faster, unsteady and panicky. She slips, falls, and the shiny hard floor comes up to slap her. She shivers uncontrollably and shuts her eyes, taking deep steadying breaths. Reminding herself that she has nothing to fear.

It helps little.

It takes more time than she'd like to admit to gather herself together and longer it seems for the fear to subside. Eventually Clara feels her way around on her hands and knees. Finally she makes out what could be the actual console. Gripping at the edges to pull herself up and onto her knees. The tip of Clara's fingers accidentally slip into what she later surmises to have been the telepathic circuits.

 _Oops_.

The inside of the Tardis jolts back to life, lights flickering madly all around her.

The Old Girl takes off.

 **X**

There is no familiar wheeze and groan, but the Doctor can _feel_ it.

The Tardis has gone and Clara along with it. Perhaps it's for the best because here he stands, far from alone and in the worst of ways. Frozen in a space of time that he has deemed _Forbidden_. There is nothing for him here, nothing but books and shadows and death.

He hears shouting in the distance. It is a nightmare of a conversation he has already lived through. One he's wished every single day of his lives since to forget.

It's River. She arguing with his younger self. The young, pinstripe one. The one who hadn't know her. The one who had to watch her die.

 _She is going to die_ , the thought settles, his limbs suddenly numb with dread. The Shadows no doubt surrounding him become so unimportant because, then: _she'll never be anything but dead here._

He feels helpless, utterly and completely without choice. Why did he come here? Why did the Tardis bring him here? Lingering between a River who shouts a younger self that doesn't know her, with nothing to show for it but a fixed ending. _Why_?

A hand settles on the Doctor's shoulder and before he can be spooked to hell over it, he comes face to face with none other than his son. Blu Williams. Just a glance at his son and he knows it's the Blu he's been seeking out for months. All this time he's spent up and down across the universe searching for him, this boy of his, and Blu has been in the Library, lingering with ghosts of parents who have no notion of him yet. The Doctor strangely finds he is utterly unsurprised by this.

"I told you to go!"

They both turn their heads in the direction of the Younger Version's shout.

"Lux can manage without me," comes River's reply, voice a tremor in the distance. "But you can't."

There are four things moving, two at each of Blu's side, but before the Doctor can order Blu to run his son's fist comes up out of nowhere.

Hard and limp, the Doctor goes. He collapses forwards into Blu's already awaiting arms, swaying towards unconsciousness at a terrifying speed.

 **X**

Upon landing, the Tardis interior lights blink an angry red at Clara, almost admonishing. Not willing to give the Doctor's ship another chance to take off or something worse, she hurries toward the doors and pulls them open, practically throwing herself out of the crazed box.

The Tardis doors shut at her heels and Clara imagines an annoyed huff being let out from behind her. Clara turns around and notices steam being let out from the top corners of the doors. Worriedly, she reaches out to push the blue doors open only to receive a nasty burn for her efforts.

"Oh, _fine_!" she shouts at the box. "Suit yourself then, I'm done with you until you are back under control!"

There is no definite answer but Clara gets a feeling the Doctor's box is gloating at her predicament. Turning away Clara hopes for some tell of where the Doctor's Tardis has landed. It's a forest. Sort of. The trees are a soft brown, almost caramel colored but transparent, like glass. The leaves are even more-so, they glisten in the moonlight.

Moonlight. It's evening here, wherever she is. Clara turns her head in every which direction, seeking out a sign of life. Eventually she looks back at the Tardis, raising a brow.

"Feeling charitable?" she asks. "Nah, didn't think so."

She hears a sound. Something cracking. Like a twig being snapped beneath someone's shoe. Knowing she has no idea whether this stranger is a threat or not, she really has little else choice of getting anywhere without their help.

"Hello?" she offers aloud as a greeting. "I'm a bit lost and my er- my vehicle is being a bit…" she glances back over at the Tardis, smirking, "psychotic."

The Tardis emits a tiny whine along with the steam.

 _Serves you right,_ Clara thinks. _You've been no help at all._

"Who are you?" The question comes from a tiny voice, one could assume a child. Clara whips her head around to look for a face but finds no one.

"I'm Clara." She answers their question. "Mind showing yourself? Unless it's the trees who are talking, I mean… unless it is the trees." Her back straightens as she glances at the trees nearest to her, suddenly attentive. "It wouldn't be the first time, actually," she mutters to herself with a fond shake of her head.

"What's wrong with her?"

Clara grins, not quite understanding the question. "I'm sorry? With who?"

"Sexy," comes the answer and the Tardis whines louder. "See." And a boy drops down from the trees a mere step away from where Clara is standing. She lets an undignified yelp out for it.

"She's annoyed." The boy explains, walking over and setting a hand on the blue box. Stroking it.

The boy is nearly at Clara's shoulder height, which is not very tall at all admittedly. He's got dark black hair, or at least it looks black upon the moonlight.

"What did you do to her?" he turns his head to look at her and Clara's heart stills. His stare is intensely curious and, if she can read him right, terribly amused.

"She," Clara starts to blame but stops herself. "Hold on a second, you're telling me you can hear her?"

The boy does not answer directly, instead he says, "She can overreact with strays. Which you obviously are," he gives the Tardis a pat and starts to walk away, further into the forest.

Clara stays rooted on the spot.

The boy turns, huffs – every bit a teenage know-it-all. "Are you coming or not?"

 **X**

 _Blu. Run. Run, just run. Your mother – no, just run. Run. You must. Just run._

The Doctor has the taste of blood in his mouth, eyesight bleary and feeling weak-boned. Through the haze the eyes staring down at him were unmistakable. Bright and known, stubborn and relentless.

"Blu," he calls out, hand reaching for his son and trying to sit up. Blu's hand comes down firm on his shoulder, easing him back and ordering him to rest for a bit. The Doctor did so only because he was slightly off balance and his thoughts all a jumble.

Then it all comes back.

"Run!" The Doctor shouts, upright in an instant.

"Your eyes are starting to resemble a certain someone. You better get them under control," quipped Blu offhandedly. Not in the least bit as worried as he should be.

"Blu, what are you doing here? No, no, shut up." The Doctor covers his eyes with both hands and tries to get some semblance of a thought process going. "No, _run_! Yes, we must run. Now. I don't care why you are here, we need to go."

"Nonsense, father." Blu smiled wickedly and raps his knuckles against the seemingly solid metal wall. That, the Doctor had not noticed. It clink-clangs at Blu's touch. "Shadows can't register life in a seemingly lifeless shell," Blu informs him.

The Doctor reassessed the room. Indeed they could no longer be in a Library full of flesh eating monsters any longer, but – no. No, he remembered this. He's been here before.

Then comes the terrible ache in his jaw. His hand cups his jaw reflexively and his eyes widen. Turning to glare at Blu, he remembers…. "You _hit_ me!"

Blu shrugs off the accusation, eyes trained on something the Doctor can't see. "Hard day." He explains, "You've been treating mum so poorly today and I have been accused before of judging things a bit rashly from time to time. Your words, by the way."

The Doctor works his jaw painfully, coming to stand beside his son. He sees then what Blu is looking at, or rather, looking out at.

"Did you borrow it?" The Doctor wonders, eyeing the make-up of this teselecta Blu has stashed them away inside.

"No, I stole it red-handed," Blu admits, crossing his arms over his chest. "I've no intention of giving it back," he jokes, "unlike some other travelers."

The Doctor shouldn't smile, he knows, only this one is short lived because River comes into sight. He can spy the younger version of him passed out cold, nothing but a heap on the floor.

"She punches like her father, your mum," the Doctor comments, remembering that particular fact. "He was a Centurion you know."

Blu grins tightly, "I know who my grandfather was, dad."

"What are you planning, Blu?"

The Doctor's son huffs, unimpressed. "I'm not planning," Blu tells him. "I'm doing. Now, are you helping or not? Because I cannot have any distractions and that happens to be your M.O."

The Doctor is quite unsettled by this. Not knowing the inside of this thing for starters, as this teselecta has obviously been customized to suit whatever it is needed for. Two, not knowing the inside work of Blu's plan. He is then distracted by River as she comes into sight. She's painfully real and outside the teselecta, still unsafe in the Library. Crying freely as she busies herself connecting wires to her death chair while the younger version of him lays useless and unconscious on the floor.

The past hangs heavier than it had back then and now, long-carried as it is, it still burns as bright as the first time 'round. It overwhelms him. Being back in the Library, with a different face or no, it all comes rushing back. Whether he'd managed to save her or not is not the point, he is here _now_ and it was the Tardis who stranded him here so he can't simply stand by and leave it be. He can't just let her die. Not again.

"I can do it without you, of course." Blu's voice tugs him back, back from the shadows of his own thoughts. "I have volunteers."

The Doctor takes a glance at his eldest. All speech and bravado. Blu is his mother and father rolled into one. And his obvious bluffing fools no one, least of all the Doctor. The Tardis had stranded him here at this particular time. It is no stretch to conclude that Blu needs him there for whatever is to happen.

Blu's body shifts slightly to the right, eyes trailing off towards the second entrance where footsteps are heard approaching. "Speaking of volunteers," Blu utters, glancing at his father and fleeing his gaze just as quickly.

"Howdy, partner. It's been a while."

The Doctor tries hard not to scowl at Jack Harkness once fully revealed, but the Captain is all smiles and so he scowls anyway.

* * *

 **TBC**


	11. Fear Can Bring You Home 3

**_Fear Can Bring You Home (3/?)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood, with Clara Oswald and appearances by the 10th Doctor  
 **Summary:** _The chair is similar to the one River will climb into any second now only there are three in front of the Doctor. They are aligned all in a row from one side of the room to another, rusted a bit, all hard angles and steel_. (part of the  'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** The quote at the beginning of the chapter is a quote from the series 9 opener "The Magician's Apprentice"

* * *

 _You have one chance in a thousand. But one is all you ever need._

* * *

The boy led Clara through the crystalized forest, which glistened prettily at their every step. He chose to remain silent throughout most of their journey and at first she was sure he was leading her further into the trees only there came a clearing in sight, where she could see the trees start to part, revealing a house standing off out in the distance.

The closer they got the shadow of a house disappeared and the more familiar it became. The shape no longer only resembled a black blob image in the night, but outlines of windows and stairs on the back porch started to come into view. It was the Doctor's home, but it was different. It seemed quiet and, dare she say it, lonely. She focuses back on boy and then the house, and the recollection of earlier events occur to her. The following pieces of the puzzle show themselves and fit together instantaneously under her speculation.

They approached the backyard area which Clara can plainly see is surrounded by some sort of force field, however transparent it may appear. She decides asking now is preferable than questioning the boy while they're busy defusing the lock and key, so to speak.

"So, you must be Blu," she states quietly. The boy, Blu, falters in his steps but straightens himself quickly. He trudges on willfully, reluctant to let her know she's caught him off guard in any way. Clara smirks, somehow pleased at having surprised him with her cleverness. "You are, aren't you? You're the Doctor's son?"

Blu doesn't reply automatically but when he does there is no ignoring the distaste in his tone over said subject. "No," he says.

"No?" parrots Clara. Why would he be lying? It all adds up.

"No, I'm not _only_ the Doctor's son." The boy clarifies, "I have a mother as well."

Clara grins. She can work with this. Grumpy teenagers. It's her day job. "No, of course. You're right. River Song," she hurries her step to keep in stride with him, side to side. Equals. "We go back, too. Old mates, me and your mum. Now, before we go a step further I'd like to know: how are we defusing the force field?"

Blu doesn't stop but he does turn to look at her, astonished and wide-eyed. "How do you know about that?" he demands, a touch accusatory.

Clara scoffs, bumping her shoulder into his and leveling him with a knowing gaze. "Professor River Song and the Doctor are basically legends and there are enemies all throughout the cosmos who would readily use this place as a battlefield if the secret got out. Your parents are smarter than that, cleverer than all their enemies combined. Are you seriously going to look me in the eye and tell me this place isn't _protected_?"

Grinning widely, Clara walks the final steps towards the ratio contained by the force field. It glistens slightly, if one knows what to look for that is. The ground is bare still. Untouched – much like the house. _New_. There is no earth-grown grass or flowers to hide it and so Clara spots the disruption on the surface easily. That, and the imprint of a boot mark. Clara shovels over the dirt-like substance with her own shoe and sees the tiny tells of a square shaped coding device hidden beneath it. She recognizes it only because it's so similar to a passcode key on an android ship she and the Doctor had infiltrated about a year ago.

"What brand of pudding brain do you boys take me for?" She mutters, more to herself than to Blu. She kneels down to study the device and dust more of it off. Knowing the Doctor, she assumes it's been tweaked since purchased. Made better somehow. She spots a small button on the bottom right-hand corner, easily dismissible to the eye especially in the dark. She pushes it. The device comes alive in the night air, glowing in the darkness and shooting upwards. The square device that is located on the ground now serves as a hologram image right at her eyesight, detailed and in waiting. Clara turns and gestures at Blu, "Go on then."

Hesitantly, Blu steps forwards and presses his hand up against the hologram image. The outline of his hand turns red and Blu steps away, five fingerprints stay suspended in the air until the hologram slowly clears, disappearing back into the ground and revealing a large tree that shoots up into the sky. There are stairs intricately built into the twists and turns of the tree, heading up and up and up.

Clara can hardly contain herself, declaring, "I've always loved a good climb in the dead of night." She start up on the stairs, throwing a look back at Blu, "And eyes front, soldier."

"Yes, ma'am," comes the slightly more respectful, if not downright _impressed_ , reply.

 **X**

The Doctor demanded answers without actually demanding them, knowing Blu was loathe to give all of the important pieces up without a fight. So Blu explained, time running against them at every tick, and the Doctor listened to his son explain. He juggled every piece of information given, weighing them against every possible flaw and misstep. Looking for the sum of the plan that would be most logical, or even more dangerous: the one most wished.

The Doctor knew his son enough to know the boy, though a man grown now, was all heart. If his mother was going to die Blu was not the type to let such a thing happen without a fight. Not even in a library full of Vashta Nerada with the future very much depending on the past playing out just so.

"And so we'll snatch her up, big save the day ending," Captain Jack explained with a smile, "and we all go home."

"Is that so?" the Doctor replied, keeping his eyes trained on River whom was still outside of the tesselecta. Unprotected and scared. In fact, she was already set to climb into her death chair. She'd done good work with the wiring, nothing shy of perfection.

"It is." Jack confirmed his question.

The conversation taking place was taking time no one had, least of all River. The Doctor can practically smell the nerves coming off of Jack and Blu. They sit as a unit, unsettled and unsure, both waiting on _him_ to be the one to stall. This is a test. They are trying to work out what side he is on, where he would tip on the scale. A game. But no one plays games with the Doctor. Surely not when concerning _her_ because of all the times he has not been allowed the option, eventually, when the hour arises, he'll chose her. Always and completely. He had not Rule One'd that. Never that.

"You know," the Doctor smirked, reaching into his top pocket with one swift movement, "it's all a very happy ending picture, Captain, but life rarely works out so prettily."

The Doctor aims his sonic, one thought in mind: _destroy_.

The wires connecting to the back of the chair let out a spark and River shouts in dismay. Thankfully, the younger version of him was out cold or there could have been a so much explaining to do.

The Doctor catches Jack and Blu as they share a glance of relief, their shoulders setting and smiles turning genuine.

"Got any suggestions, old man?" Blu proses.

He seemed far too superior for the Doctor's taste. As did the Captain at his son's side. Oh, he really was getting too old for this sort of nonsense.

"You brought me here," accused the Doctor though not angrily. Or not entirely. Yet. "Both of you. Didn't you?" Neither denied. "Blu, you probably enlisted the Tardis to help. Shame on her. Captain, you're up to no good on a daily basis. That's self-explanatory," And Jack had the audacity to smile widely, causing the Doctor's own lips to upturn in reflex.

The Doctor turned abruptly, tossing his sonic up in the air and catching it, pacing. "It's going to take her at least thirty minutes to fix that," he gestured outside the tesselecta, over to where River was now furiously working at the burnt up wires with her own sonic. "A regular being would be an hour, at most two, but she's just too good. My wife." The Doctor allowed the smugness a moment. "Captain," he called Jack to attention.

"Yes, sir?"

"It won't work," the Doctor said plainly. "Not you by yourself, anyway." Blu and Jack did not hurry to dispute so they must already know it to be factual, too. That saved time indeed however it did pose a problem. The ultimate problem, because that meant this was not going to work. And Blu… his son has mucked about in timelines on a whim built out of hopes and wishes and the best outcome. Had he really not taught his son better than that?

"If you were not a hundred percent sure, Blu," the Doctor starts, quelling his anger. Trying to. "Meddling with time on less than a hundred percent, you can't just _do_ what you want because you want to!"

"Oh, please, do spare me a lecture," Blu snapped. Anger and hostility and _blame_. "I did the math, father. I'm not some child to rule over all of time on a… a child's fancy to play the hero. I'm not a hero, that's you. Mother even told you but you don't listen, do you? Who got her out of the Library, hmm? Do you remember what she said? Because I sure do."

The Doctor blinks, remembering the conversation. The first time he'd stumbled upon River and his granddaughter and Blu and all of the rest of it. Christmas.

He remembers her voice, River's, strained and (though evasive as possible) admitting that Blu had gotten her , but that wasn't most valuable spoilers came later, safe in her arms and rushed. " _Long story short, you were with him when you got me out, both of you. Both my boys."_

"Cut from the same cloth," the Doctor recalls suddenly.

"Just a tiny bit better than you," finishes Blu.

"Where do need me?"

 **X**

"This is amazing!" exclaims Clara, wandering about the tiny transport area the stairs have led them to. The stairs and the tree have disappeared and they are traveling somehow. She just knows it. It's the feel in the air and it's delightful. Blu watches at her side with poorly concealed amusement.

"What is this exactly? I mean, it's not actually a tree," she states. "That was just for show. Besides, the trees on this planet look like gorgeous glass sculptures, carved and made for sell. The kind my Gran buys on the telly for decoration. The tree we climbed looks like a regular earth grown one, so how is that?"

Blu once again hesitates. She can see him processing whether to answer her. On one hand it looks like he wants to tell her everything, itching to spill the details over every nook, every cranny. On the other… well. She's virtually a stranger, isn't she?

"Hey," Clara calls softly. "It's okay. You don't really have to tell me. I was just curious is all. I do that. Your dad can vouch for it, truly. Just ask." The boy exhales shakily, nodding his thanks. "How about we get you right on home and then we figure this whole thing out," Clara suggests. "Your mother must be worried sick."

"No," Blu shakes his head fondly. Smiling for the first time in their entire encounter. "Somehow, no matter what I'm doing or where I am, she always knows."

Clara laughs heartily, "That's a mum for you. Still, it'd ease her mind to have you back. Safe and sound."

Blu does not disagree.

 **X**

The chair is similar to the one River will climb into any second now only there are three in front of the Doctor. They are aligned all in a row from one side of the room to another, rusted a bit, all hard angles and steel.

The Doctor sneaks himself behind said chairs and finds all sorts of wires connected to the back of the chairs, wires awaiting its occupants. He raises his eyes to catch his son's. "So, which is mine?"

"The one on the left," answers Blu automatically. "Most humans, their heart is located right around the middle area of their chest. Some have it tilted to the left side of the body, or a bit on the right. Varies. Mum's is slightly to the left. I figured it would be a touch poetic."

The Doctor scoffs, smiling a little. "Never took you for the romantic sort."

Blu returns his amusement. "Neither did I."

"I'll be on the right," Jack offers up, clearing his throat. "You'll need a battery of life, to put it plainly, and-"

"You can't die," the Doctor concludes.

"Precisely." Confirmed Jack. "I'll be death and you… you will be life."

"Unlike mum's first go at it, you know how to control distributing regeneration energy." Blu explains eagerly, "I'm more than just a hundred percent positive you can sustain the right amount during the transfer."

The Doctor's eye linger on the middle chair.

"That's a receiver," Blu names for him. "I've constructed a very specific code in the tesselecta to act as a homing vessel for when…" he hesitates. "For when she has to burn into the hard drive."

"So she'll still be," but the Doctor couldn't finish the sentence, let alone the thought.

"A part of her has to be uploaded into the hard drive of the computer," Blu confirmed solemnly. "The future depends on certain legitimacies, after all."

The Doctor nods. River's Data-Ghost able to appear in Trenzalore finally taking some form of explanation.

"Once you're plugged in the tesselecta will upload your DNA. My likeness will fade away and it will take yours. Your job is to distract her while we transfer her into the tesselecta, persuade her to play it all out as you remember. Which might mean wiping some of her memory. The tesselecta will then take her place, burning what it needs to from her whil-"

"No," the Doctor says abruptly, cutting Blu off with the shake of his head. "That won't do."

"Have you changed your mind?" puzzles Jack.

"No, the tesselecta cannot turn into me." The Doctor watches his son and Blu is quick to anger. The boy doesn't understand. How could he? "She doesn't know me," the Doctor stresses to point out.

"She's _mum_ ," Blu argues. "She always knows you!"

"Missing the point, Blu," the Doctor admonishes gruffly, trying desperately not to lose his temper. It will serve no purpose. "Think about it! She's ready to die, she's made her peace."

"Are you seriously saying you're going to let my mother _die_?!" bellows his son.

"That is not what I said!" the Doctor shouts back in equal measure. "Pay attention!"

"She needs someone she knows." Jack proposes, his voice calm and calculating, quick to catch what the Doctor is trying to say. "She needs the You she knows. The one she married. That's what you mean."

"Exactly," utters the Doctor. Not quite able to look his son in the eye. "Fix the code, Blu. When you plug me in, the tesselecta has to turn into Bowtie."

* * *

 **TBC**


	12. Fear Can Bring You Home 4

**_Fear Can Bring You Home (4/?)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood, with Clara Oswald and appearances by the 10th Doctor  
 **Summary:** _He starts to run. Not from River but towards her and towards them. Readying to throw himself right into the thick of it. The ending. Because fear is a superpower and he's had years of arming himself._ \- Love is just full of promises ;) (part of the  'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** Chapter quote from the Series 8 finale "Death In Heaven"

* * *

 _This is a promise. The promise of a soldier. (You will sleep safe tonight.)_

* * *

Blu leads Clara through what appears to be a doorway only once on the other side she realizes it's a large kitchen cabinet built into the wall. Pushing it back into place Clara spies the shelves, lined with cans and crisps, is split down the middle and they close much like a door would. The cabinet, once arranged side by side properly, shoves itself inward and further into the wall. Finally, Blu closes the shelved cabinet and it fits it perfectly with the rest of the kitchen area. There's no indication that anything in this kitchen is the slightest bit out of the ordinary.

"Brilliant," exhales Clara, wide eyes raking over the rest of the kitchen curiously. Pitch dark as the room is it takes a minute or two for her eyes to adjust.

"Why thank you Clara Oswald," a gruff voice calls out in the darkness. The outline of a body sitting at the kitchen table moves to stand and Clara's breath catches.

She smiles, relief flooding over her, "Doctor."

"Up to bed now, Blu," the Doctor tells his son. "You know better than to be out at this hour."

Blu ducks his head in acknowledgment and does as he is told, leaving both Clara and the Doctor alone in the kitchen.

"Join me for a spot of tea?" the Doctor offers before slipping back into his chair.

"Of course," Clara blinks, dreadfully unsure of navigating her surroundings in this unknown place in the dark. As if reading her mind, a tiny green light goes off and Clara hears the familiar sound of the sonic screwdriver. The kitchen lights up in seconds. Grateful, Clara dashes over to the table where the Doctor sits and drops into the seat across from him, eager to look upon him after all that has happened.

The Doctor pushes over a cup filled with newly made tea, still steaming and hot to the touch. Clara thanks him and blows at the cup before taking a cautious sip. Her eyes latch onto the Doctor next. He's there, finally, sitting in front of her. She could reach out and touch him if she wished, just to make sure that he's real and doesn't disperse at the slightest disruption. She doesn't.

The Doctor is wearing a thick fluffy robe over the thin cotton t-shirt he has on, years old by the looks of it and of the color a deep red. His hair is no longer speckled with grays and has turned a stark white. A puffy, curly delight right atop his head. It strikes a shining contrast against the red garment he wears. He's fashioning a good bit of stubble on his chin, like he's got other things to worry about than to keep his face clean-shaven. His face is lined with time, the creases and wrinkles etched deeper onto this face that she now knows so well. His eyes….

Oh, but those eyes. They are still the same. Ancient and kind, but a bit more weighted with all he has lived and seen. Older yes, but _content_. So very calm and steady are those orbs that it ceases the worries in her, worries she didn't know she carried.

Clara knows she's staring and that the Doctor is openly letting her, gauging her own reaction with a fondness that has her smiling like a loon.

"Worked it out yet, Clara?" he asks. Taking a sip from his own teacup to hide his very own telling grin.

"How old are you?" she blurts, shaking her head and laughing at her complete lack of tact. "I mean-"

"I know what you mean," says the Doctor softly, setting his tea down and yawning.

"Oh, my god." Clara gapes at him. "That was a yawn! Are you actually tired? Are you really… did I wake you up? Is that why you're yawning? I thought you never slept!"

The Doctor rolls his eyes, "Please do relax, Clara. So I shut my eyes for an hour or two these days, big deal. It turns out raising a child is hardly as easy as my day job."

Clara snorts, "Your day job? As in saving the universe from collapsing into the void of blah, blah, blah and aliens and etcetera, etcetera?"

"Yes, in fact," the Doctor tries to stifle down another yawn, glaring at Clara so she knows to keep her smart remarks to herself "He's a bloody handful," he confesses about Blu, frowning deeply. "He's brilliant and clever and curious, Clara! _So_ curious. He does things because he wants to _know_. The intrigue in that one," the Doctor shakes his head worryingly, his hands clasping together to stop them from shaking. A fear for the future it seems. "Blu doesn't even care if anyone's done it before him or if it's taken into account already. He wants to be the one to experience things for himself. I can only imagine what trouble he'll get up to when he doesn't have to listen to me anymore. I've basically become Enemy Number 1 in his eyes, do you know that?"

"Oh, come off it," Clara dismisses the notion with a wave of her hand, because it _is_ a ridiculous concept. "I hardly believe your son thinks of you like that. Albeit you can be a bit crabby at times." She gets an eyebrow for that.

"Crabby, am I?"

"A bit," she allows, laughing softly. "Not all the time. You just go all Scot and we innocents have to deal with it. Looking at him, he seems to be going into teenage years and that's no fun, not for any parent. But no matter what he does or what he says a child needs his father," Clara reaches out to lay her hand on the Doctor's, squeezing gently once before pulling back. "Blu will always need you, Doctor," she insists. "You just have to learn not to take it too personal, yeah? All parents go through it."

The Doctor's lips curl into a warm smile, "You really are a mighty fine teacher, Clara Oswald."

"Just catching up with that are you?" Clara sips happily.

They enjoy the rest of their tea in a semi-comfortable silence, a smile here, a roll of eyes there. The Doctor sighs heavily once both cups are empty and says, "Thank you."

"For what?"

The Doctor does not answer her, swiping her teacup from her hands and standing. "As exciting as this has been, I do believe it is time you go where you ought to be. Much is waiting for you there, Clara. Me mostly, and I'm going to need your help."

 **X**

The Doctor opens his eyes and despite knowing where he was physically (strapped into the chair of Blu's invention) he sees darkness. He glimpses shadows moving in every corner. Trapped inside the Library once again.

With a jolt of anxiety, everything discussed prior to his current state comes forth instantaneously. He works out where he is and where he is expected to be. It's not a long distance but he figures he has one chance so he best not spend it on a catchphrase.

He starts to run. Not from River but towards her and towards them. Readying to throw himself right into the thick of it. The ending.

Because fear _is_ a superpower and he's had years of arming himself.

 **X**

"Hello, dear."

The endearment, spoken with _that_ voice, comes from behind her.

Professor River Song shuts her eyes tightly, willing the memory of him away. With a steadying breath she forces herself to blatantly ignore the sentimental nature of her brain for conjuring the voice of Her Doctor, because if she's concentrating on his voice instead of the work in front of her it won't do. Oh, but he sounded so real. If only….

 _No_. She can't allow herself to get muddled with the past. It is done and over, they are done and over. This is it. This is her last stop, she will be brave. She has no other choice in the matter, or at least no other choice she would choose to indulge in. River must maintain focus on readying the wires onto the chair for the cleanest download into the hard drive, if that's even possible. But that doesn't matter. No, there are those who need saving. Innocent lives. She has to try. But now her hands are shaking and her eyes are glazing over with unshed tears.

The silent Library only echoes her tiny whimpers back to her as she tries and is unable to hold back the sobs she's been holding in for hours. Her broken resolve magnified in the darkness.

Arms surround her and pull her closer, fingers she knows the feel of all too well tangle in her hair.

"River," he whispers her name softly and she shudders in his arms, still afraid to glimpse at him. Afraid. _So_ afraid he'll disappear at the slightest disruption of reality. Her Doctor.

"It's alright," he comforts. "I'm here, I'm not leaving you here. Open your eyes."

"I can't," she shakes her head miserably. "I can't." And she reaches out, searching. Her hand closes around a bowtie and she exhales with such a splendid relief that her eyes end up fluttering open on instinct.

He's there. He's really there. She cups his abnormally shaped chin and brushes back the ridiculous flop of fringe that's always falling in his face.

"Hello, sweetie," she says uneasily. The day had tested her own endearments for him.

"I know I'm late, dear." The smile on his face full of warmth and recognition, so unlike the one she'd been dealing with all day. It makes her breath catch and new tears fall, tears of gratitude and love. So much love. "You know all about how traffic can be these days," he tells her.

"Hell?" she offers and her Dear Husband nods.

"He'll be waking up soon." He cups both her cheeks gently and forces her attention to be on him and only him. "We are going to fix up this chair and when we are done I am going to help you climb into it. No, no," he shook his head at her questions. "Not here, no time to explain. You trust me, don't you? Good, then just listen. You have to make him believe this is the end, River. Every frustration you've had of today, every frustration you have with _me_ , because I am the same man and I did this to you, you lay it down for both of us to hear. All of it. No more hiding the damage, River." Her Doctor moved forward to press a kiss to her hairline. "And don't you be scared, River. I'm going to be watching the entire time."

The Doctor helps her finish up the final work on the chair and they work in silence. She keeps stealing glances at him and he only smiles back at her. Once finished, he helps her climb up as if it were a throne, connecting the last of the wires once she's sat snuggly. He adds what appears to be tiny square computer chip to the back of the chair that she _knows_ is not part of the main construction piece.

"You are going to be fine," he promises and then moves forward as if he can't help himself, kissing her quickly. "I love you so very much," he whispers.

River stares stunned as the Doctor, her Doctor, retreats into the darkness of the Library.

 **X**

He watches it play out, the whole bloody saga. At front seat he stands, hidden away where his younger self can't see him, but River can.

"Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die."

It may for all intents and purposes look like she's maintaining skittish eye contact with the Doctor who's handcuffed, only River Song is a seasoned liar and she's glorious in her part. Glorious and utterly heartbroken, eyes flitting from his younger self and back to him.

"All the time we've been together, you knew I was coming here."

All her words and all her tears, all her hurts – they're all for him. He did that. He knows that, and so he'll take River bearing her heartstrings for him with open arms. He's more than deserving of facing that damage, of taking blame for his part. She is his wife and he had made a promise after all.

"The last time I saw you, the real you, the _future_ you, I mean, you turned up on my doorstep, with a new haircut and a suit. You took me to Darillium to see the Singing Towers. What a night that was. The Towers sang, and you cried. You wouldn't tell me why, but I suppose you knew it was time. My time. Time to come to the library. You even gave me your screwdriver. That should have been a clue."

The Doctor watches his younger self listen to River, hanging on her every word. Uncomprehending yet desperate, reaching out for the screwdriver she speaks of.

Even way back then he couldn't stop the overwhelming urge to save her.

"There's nothing you can do."

"You can let me do this!"

"If you die here, it'll mean I've never met you!" River argues back at his younger self, as if he is a particularly thick brand of Doctor.

"Time can be rewritten!"

"Not those times. Not one line. Don't you _dare_." River starts consoling him, the younger one. Giving him hope but ultimately sealing them and their future together full circle. For the most part younger version of him pleads, still pushing against the clock and hoping for an outcome different than that which is playing out. "Hush now, spoilers."

River connects the final piece.

The Doctor does not remember her screaming that day but she is certainly screaming now.

* * *

 **TBC**


	13. Fear Can Bring You Home 5

**_Fear Can Bring You Home (5/?)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood, with Clara Oswald and appearances by the 10th Doctor  
 **Summary:** _The Doctor wills himself to stand there and see. He owes it to River not to flinch away from it, from this; the damage._ \- In the Library: While Blu patches River up, answers are given and promises are made.

Outside the Library: Clara's beginning of the end (so to speak) looms in the distance & older!Doctor is evasive but not transparent. Go figure. (part of the 'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:** To be honest I wanted to see how Clara's storyline wrapped up on the show before continuing this series and then I mucked up because time passed  & writers block happened so, oops. Anyhow, this chapter contains some tiny hints on Clara's exit on the show but heavier references will come in the following chapters. Chapter quote from the Series 8 finale "Death In Heaven"

* * *

 _Love is a promise._

* * *

The Doctor and Clara trekked the length from his family home back to the Tardis Clara had arrived in. It was a peculiar in the sense that Clara hadn't mentioned arriving in the blue box nor where the Old Girl had parked herself. She doubts the Doctor had any time to question his son on the details of her arrival either. The Doctor seemed to know where to go anyway and Clara followed his lead.

She did feel it necessary to inform the Doctor of how his ship had gone completely mad this time around, to which he merely stated that she was being dramatic as ever, reminding her that the Tardis was known to take advantage of such emotions. They squabbled on the differing of opinions right up until the blue box came back into view. As annoyed as Clara had been with the Tardis she does perk up at the sight of her.

The Doctor wastes no time and snaps his fingers, the blue doors opening for her Thief at an instant. Clara quickly follows back inside his ancient time machine, taking her place not far from him and studying him with what she hoped passed off as sly glances.

This older Doctor had not bothered to change from his home clothes and so he stands piloting his ship dressed in a comfy old robe with stubble peppered across his cheeks and past his jawline. The fluffy white hair atop his head shines brighter that Clara can remember it ever having done, illuminated to full effect by the Tardis lights overhead.

"So where exactly do we go from here?" Clara questions him, quite eager to know herself.

"The past is what awaits you, Clara," the Doctor answers. The statement hangs definitive and permanent in the air. He's somewhat glaring at her inquisitively and he even looks a bit skittish. As if her presence alone spooks him to his core. "Loosely speaking," he continues – an alternative perhaps, or a distraction tactic. She keeps her eyes peeled. "We're putting the future on pause, so you really would have all the time in the world."

Clara weighed out what it could possibly be that he was leaving unsaid. Her Doctor would tell her everything. Always. It was them against the world. Whatever is it that he isn't compelled to trust her with?

"This next stop would be the last stop then, yeah? So…." Clara drums her fingers on the console for dramatic effect. "What exactly are you waiting for, old man?"

The Doctor's lips quirk, just barely, and his eyes crinkle up around the edges. They smile brightly where his lips fails to. "Ready or not," he prompts, hand steady at the lever and brow raising higher in silent inquiry.

"Here we come," Clara finishes for him, hanging on for dear life and positively beaming.

 **X**

River had screamed. From the start of the transfer she had burned up from the inside out and the Doctor, his son and Jack stood as witness.

With the upload complete Jack took action. Gathering River's limp and ruined body into his arms and leading way into the Tesselecta med room, the Doctor and Blu following close after.

Their son had been quick in step, bustling past and hurrying to attend to the hurts of his unconscious mother. Blu lifts River's head cautiously for closer inspection of her injuries. The sight of burn marks can been seen stemming from the back of her neck and spreading outward, much like a fire that's caught in a dry field and left a very visible trail one can follow. Several of River's beautiful curls have singed and, however gentle Blu's touch, most crack under the disruption of his fingertips. The Doctor wills himself to stand there and _see_. He owes it to River not to flinch away from it, from this; the damage.

"There's swelling," Blu reports, fingers pressing down along River's throat gently. "She's no doubt exhausted her vocal chords. Might be incapable of speaking for a while, too."

Blu's hands prove deft and precise in their practiced motion, the Doctor notes. He works the machines and equipment surrounding him much like he knows exactly what he's doing. The more the Doctor watches, the more he feels the mismatched pieces are starting to add up. That from the inklings and glimpses he's had of Blu over the time he's learned of his son's existence, it is at this precise moment that the obvious starts occurring. Oh, how he hates to miss the obvious when it is so blatantly in front of him.

"Internal injuries," Blu recited aloud, checking off from a mental list no doubt. "That can be dealt with."

"You're a doctor." It's more a statement than an actual question and the Doctor waits for confirmation with genuine interest.

Blu's hands, a millisecond ago working without pause, still at the observation. Seeming to be used to his father's eventual guesswork, he resigns any denials on the matter and affords the Doctor a nod.

"I suppose," Blu shrugs, modest and yet terribly arrogant to the fact. "A real one anyway," he adds, eyes fixed on his father, challenging and full of wondrous mischief.

The Doctor cracks a grin despite the barb itself and pushes aside his own ego, choosing instead to ponder at the magnificence of it. It's not quite pride he feels but something much more selfless. Something far more endearing and a lot more human.

Their son, a bloody doctor! Amy and Rory would be thrilled. They'd also be grateful. For this, for Blu. For what he's done. Saving her.

"She's only safe and here because of you, Blue," the Doctor admits quietly. "Your mother. Alive."

" _Stop_ ," Blu breathes out harshly, glaring into the monitors but not looking at them. Not quite. "She's not. She's no one. Not to me, you understand? Not _yet_. And she won't know me either way, so…. So just don't even start, alright?"

The Doctor swallows, processing Blu's sudden outburst.

Blu doesn't waste time. He tends to the burns on his mother's skin but his touch doesn't linger. He doesn't look her in the face. Every action performed is clinical, detached. He's trying so very hard to be brave, this son of theirs.

Blu has known all along what was in store for him and it is the Doctor who is just catching up.

It's going to be too early for her. When River wakes up she will not know their own son.

Blu will also never forget this moment. He will never be able to erase it. He will have to learn to live with it, this incident, and no one should ever have to do that. Especially not a child when concerning their own parent. And River. She would never forgive herself, having gone through the same thing with her own parents. The very notion of it is horrifying and it leaves a terrible strain in the already unquiet air. At this moment the Doctor wants nothing more than to shield Blu from the monstrous _thing_ that this encounter will bring to life for him, one that the Doctor knows intimately from experience. He knows the cost and the cost is too high.

It matters not how long he has known of Blu being his son, let alone that he's yet to be a proper parent to the lad, the fact remains that he, the Doctor, _is_ Blu's father. If Blu so wishes for a way out, and there is always a way, a choice, there has to be, the Doctor will find it. The rules be damned. He cannot sit idly by and let this happen without knowing Blu's stance on it. River would never forgive him for it and he would never forgive himself.

"You don't have to do this," the Doctor proposes, as if he's cooing a baby to calm with gentle words. "Not _this_. We can find another way. Someone else can tend to your mother, Blu. It doesn't have to be you."

"Rule one doesn't exactly fool anyone in this family, father." Blu grins, bitter and desperate. "You probably ought to remember that for future reference."

The look that passes across his son's face settles over the Doctor in haunting quality, for once upon a time a plastic Centurion determined to guard a box had the same look about him. If Blu is anything like his Grandfather, the Doctor knows for certain that Blu will not change his mind nor will he abandon his part to play in this story. Blu is decided, end of.

"If you insist, Blu," the Doctor rasps, coming to grips with the situation himself. "And so what else?" he prompts eventually, enticing Blu to continue. To take out any volatile emotions the boy is keeping coiled up tightly inside of himself, because if Blu is to play the part of an unknown when it comes to River Song there can be no cracks threatening to spill at the surface. She can and will be able to tell. The Doctor knows this much. And it's the least he can do for Blu, for his boy. To help. In some way or other.

His son however glares at him in a silent fury. Almost as if he doesn't recognize the person standing in front of him. The reaction seems to last an eternity until Blu gives in and concedes to his father's request, his shoulders drooping forward in surrender of the situation. Relinquishing control and handing it over to the one person he may be furious with but ultimately trusts.

Blu makes certain his mother will remain stabilized if he is to step away for second, in silent contemplation while the monitors beep back her sign of life, steady and unchanged. When convinced, finally, he backs away from River's unconscious form and approaches his father hesitantly.

"She won't remember most things," Blu confesses in a tiny, insecure voice.

The Doctor winces at this, feeling more and more like he's being put in the position of coming across a tiny child rather than a fully grown man. He wants nothing more than to pick Blu up and shelter him away from everything that will hurt him, anything that can. This isn't fair. Not at all.

"Not at first, anyway." Blu continues, reminding the Doctor to pay attention. This was most certainly important. "She was uploaded into the Library for purposes of upholding timelines so somewhat, to some extent, she'll be split in halves. She'll remember you but she'll forget, too. Her DNA will exhaust itself, acting as a fully operational host one moment and existing as a shade of herself the next. Going and coming back. Being where she needs to be, when she needs to be there."

"Her Data Ghost," the Doctor recalls. Musings of that particular encounter being put to rest, finally.

"Exactly!" Blu nodded. "She won't know this you. You haven't met yet, I mean: this you. Not yet, and everything will be coming to a close full circle and so she'll have questions that only you can answer. It won't be easy and… and you _have_ to take care of her. That's your job now. No more popping in and out, not anymore. Do you hear me? Not for a while. Can you do that for her? Stay put and... and _be_ there?"

"That's a sodding stupid question you already know the answer to," the Doctor answers. _She's my wife!_ he wants to admonish but Blu does really does look entirely unsure of the entire ordeal. The tension in his son only builds, worry etched onto Blu's face. It's almost as if he doesn't think the Doctor capable of taking care of River Song.

"You have my word, Blu." The Doctor vows solemnly. Blu visibly relaxes at the prospect of an actual promise but the Doctor cannot leave it alone. The unsaid, the unknown, and he demands to know. "And what of you?" The Doctor reaches out a hand and closes it around his son's wrist, tugging at the man gently and looking in his eyes, saying _it's me, it's your father. Tell me you're going to be alright, or else let me help you._

Blu's expression is torn, then shifts. Suddenly inscrutable. He eyes the Doctor coolly. For a second the Doctor worries Blu will toss _spoilers_ in his face however the answer his son gives sits far worse in his conscience.

"Don't you worry, father," assures his son. "You of all should know that you'll be seeing me again soon enough."

 **X**

"There we are, perfect timing," the Doctor announces.

"You sure about that?" Clara teases. "With your driving we never do know."

The Doctor glares at her for a second before shooing her outside. They are met with the front side of the very house he and River share in the future only it appears perfectly empty. Looking around, Clara finds the entire area to be dead silent. And cold. _Very_ cold.

"Why didn't you tell me we landed in the North Pole!" Clara accuses with a full bodied shiver, curling her arms around herself and hoping to seek shelter back inside the warmth of the Tardis. The Doctor snaps his fingers, oblivious to her discomfort, and the doors come clamoring shut. Clara grumbles a few choice words at him for fairing the chill without much a bother. Then flurries of snow, or whatever it is that constitutes snow on this choice planet, catch in his puffy white hair. Clara is helpless in succumbing to the pointing and laughing that follows.

"Oh, do pipe down," the Doctor chastises. Hidden on the inside of his seemingly tattered robe he produces a set of keys joined with an envelope. He holds them out to her and says, "These are for you."

"Bigger on the inside?" she guesses at the robe with a raised brow. The Doctor merely frowns.

Clara snatches the items he's offering with a glare. She tries to unfold the papers within the envelope but her shaky hands prove not to be as cooperative as she'd like. Alas, with no help from him, Clara finally has two sets of documents in hand. She has to squint in order to read them. They look to be two virtually identical papers only one is filled and the other blank.

"These are housing papers," she names, her teeth chattering, much to her annoyance. Her eyes widen when she spots a particular piece of information. "Doctor," Clara asks imploringly, "why is my signature on these deeds for residence?"

"Well," the Doctor huffs, "you're hardly going to do as I ask without proof, are you? And there it is. In pain text." He taps at the papers. "So listen, why don't you just go on inside and make yourself a cup of tea. And you know how to stoke a fireplace don't you? Because you're going to need to burn that one," he taps document already filled. "Preferably before the others get here."

The Doctor eyes her warily before turning and descending the stairs of the property. Clara is quick to react, marching on after him and grabbing a hold of his arm before he can even attempt to disappear on her.

He gapes. "Well, what are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" she blurts incredulously. "What are _you_ doing? You obviously can't just leave me here with deeds to houses and stuff! _And_ freezing, might I add!"

"You have a key, Clara!" the Doctor points out, dumbfounded. Oh, how she'll smack him if he doesn't start making sense soon. "And you won't be alone here for long anyway," he adds in, almost an incentive.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?" demanded Clara.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, "My guess is as good as yours."

"Liar."

The Doctor grins smartly, "Yeah, yeah. You and me both."

Turning a calculating eye back towards the empty house, Clara tries to process the chain of events so far, as mismatched and out of order as they are, as evasive as the Doctor thinks he is…. Clara expects _some_ answers and she'll darn right keep him here longer than he's supposed to be if that's what it'll take.

"So you're telling me I'm just supposed to wait? That's it? I wait here?"

This older, robe wearing, fluffy haired husband-father-home owning Doctor squints, calculating. "Ideally inside where you won't catch something but yes," he nods in affirmation. "That is the general idea."

"And you're just going to leave?" Clara receives another nod. "What, with no Tardis? How will you even get anywhere?"

"Don't you worry about me," says the Doctor. "I've got it all planned out. Honestly, you're the one I worry about really."

"Now there's a vote of confidence if I ever heard one," Clara deadpans.

"Nonsense you know I happen to think the world of you." He says it so matter-of-factly that Clara warms at the compliment.

"Doctor," Clara sighs. She can't help the overwhelming static of uncertainty playing abuzz in her ears. "Why are we doing this? Going in circles? What is the point?"

There is a pause as he considers her question. He's deciding whether to lie to her or to tell her the truth and which will fool her best. Sadly, she is no fool.

"Sometimes, Clara," he says softly, "if we're lucky things tend to happen in loops. Beginnings and ends follow in that similar pattern, and so on and on it goes. Some things cannot be stopped and… and some things, things that have been forgotten or lost, they can come back to you. And some things, they can be... delayed."

"So then this is something, isn't it?" Clara brightens at the idea. "Something big?"

The Doctor stares at her, eyes softening and just a tiny bit sad. "On you go, Clara Oswald. You have so much waiting for you."

Clara wants to comment on it the second she notices. On those big sad eyes, but she catches glimpse of that empty house again. The one not yet a home. She thinks to ask on one other occurrence but turns to find the Doctor already across streetway and disappearing around the corner, all without a single goodbye. To her surprise Clara doesn't find it odd nor does she feel the urge to go after him. She feels steady, as if she's meant to be here exactly at this time and place, and not even the Doctor could pull her away.

Unsure but her curiosity piqued, Clara walks up the steps of property. The chill in the air has been completely forgotten now that a puzzle of sorts has been presented. Wide-eyed, she catalogs the differences that she can notice from her last visit onto this wholly new one, assuming she'll need to remember it at some point. Next, Clara examines the key the Doctor handed over to her and finds it to be nothing overly special. It looked the same as any other key should. Finally, she turns her attention to the identical documents in her hand, focusing on the dates. The dates printed aren't earth-bound dates however the names on the documentation of residence sends a wondrous thrill right through her. Three signatures looked up at Clara, her own penmanship among them. Feeling she has exhausted her examinations, Clara folds the unsigned form carefully and tucks it back into the envelope, keeping the signed document separate from it.

With a deep breath, Clara moves forward to unlock the front door of the house.

* * *

 _ **TBC**_


	14. Fear Can Bring You Home 6

**_Fear Can Bring You Home (6/6)_**  
G  
12/River & their timey-wimey brood, with Clara Oswald and appearances by the 10th Doctor  
 **Summary:** _"She'll be waking up any moment now."_ \- Settling in  & coming home.

(To the future and the past. And yeah, kinda in that order.) (part of the 'Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve' series)  
 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
 **AN:**

* * *

 _The long way 'round._

* * *

She waits for him at a corner shop of the planet they would herein call home. At least, from this day forward they would. Past-them.

River's lips are pursed and she knows her hair is a golden spun of curls hastily tied back, poking out here and there. She's frazzled and dressed herself in a rush (the Doctor's clothes, he'll like that) as soon as their son had woken her with tales of the girl who had arrived at their home out of nowhere after a lifetime of absence. Blu had led her to back to where he had found Clara, where a Tardis was no longer parked and her husband gone along with them. Off into the past, she suspected. Their past.

"You're early." Her husband says upon approaching.

River still had a bit of sleep in her eyes but she smiles at him nonetheless. "But of course, my love. We had a date, did we not?"

"Indeed." He agrees. The Doctor's eyes wander upon the sight of the planet. It's barely out of its diapers but it's getting there all the same.

"I trust you left Clara settling in well." River comments, making conversation. She pushes up the dark blue coat with the red lining to reveal her vortex manipulator strapped around her wrist. She also makes sure to mention that their son won't shut up about their surprise visitor in the night and that the Doctor has many question to answer when they arrive back to their time as she inputs coordinates.

Silence.

A glance over at her husband and River's hand stills. He looks shell-shocked, grasping, his eyes wet and his hand shaking like a leaf.

"Sweetie?" she inquires.

"Yes," the Doctor intones, quiet, his eyes fleeting, determined from meeting hers. "Yes, yes. Sorry, dear." He wipes away the moisture in his eyes and gives a gruff inhale, pacing a few steps away and turning his back to her.

"Oh, don't you start on this sorry nonsense on me," River mutters, moving quickly to gather his attention before it slips away from them both and he hides the damage.

River stops his pacing, blocking his path and pulling the Doctor close, encircling her arms around him. His head falls forward instinctively, fitting perfectly right in the crock of her neck. Her words come as a harsh whisper. Too private to speak aloud and yet far too important to stay unsaid.

"Memories you didn't have of your best friend for god knows how long came rushing back to you in the dead of night, and then Clara herself came back too. Sweetie…."

River Song falters. She holds her husband tighter and realizes they are both out of practice. They haven't had to deal with events of such a wibbly-wobbly manner in eons, and so the Doctor startling awake, pacing up and down their bedroom, raving _I remember, River! I remember her, my impossible girl! I remember everything!_...

For the first three years of her life back with the living, Clara Oswald had been a part of it, of River's life, of all their lives. The woman had become as close as family. Clara had been there to help the Doctor when River wasn't quite herself and she'd been there the night Blu was born. Until a day came, Clara and the Doctor had flown away in his Tardis. Same old, same old. Then, almost miraculously, he came back home and there was no more Clara Oswald. The Tardis held no imprint of her existence and there was a large gap in the Doctor's memory.. Nothing but a name and a song but not the slightest bit of recollection to much else.

River hadn't had to grasp at straws to guess exactly what that meant. She had enough experience to read the signs when they glaring back, right in front of her. For some reason or other, at some point in their timeline, the Doctor had found it fitting to erase Clara from his memory entirely, therefore forcing River to cover up any tracks as he'd left behind.

The years after Clara had exited their lives were filled with River purposely having to withhold knowledge of a woman who had become so dear to them all, so beloved.

Her throat tenses up, thickening with the overwhelming guilt of it. Her tongue feels much too big in her mouth, making her words stick to the top of her mouth and proving impossible to deliver. River swallows, having decided long ago that if she ever had a chance to fess up that's just what she was going to do. Of course, it's always a lot harder doing something than deciding it.

"It's okay to take a breath, my love," she ventures, "to… to feel angry of all that was stolen from you. Even angry at, for example, me."

The Doctor goes completely motionless in her arms and slowly, very slowly, he extricates himself. Not entirely pulling away from her embrace but the loss of him is felt, the tension.

"Aye," he agrees. "And I am, River. Believe me, I am. You knew things, _important_ things, and you didn't tell me and…." He shook his head, determined to speak his mind, no matter the urge to do the complete opposite and shut the hell up. "I'll have to get over that because… because it's not like you had a choice in lying to me. It happened abruptly, the way I remember it," he confessed. "Her death. Then I went and buggered things up and acted even more abruptly. And the sodding Time Lords were no help either! It was all so long ago."

"I am truly sorry anyway," River whispered. "For any of it. All of it."

"I know," the Doctor took hold of her wrist. He input the last of the coordinates needed to get them out of there. "Enough of this for now. Let's get back."

He pushed a button and in an instant of crackling static they were gone.

 **X**

"Welcome _Home_ ," the Hologram image recited. It had popped out on Clara the second the front door had shut, and to which she'd let out the most horrendously undignified yelp in all her years.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" Clara admonished the image, instantly struck by the rather human-likeness the hologram had chosen for a visage.

The hologram, tinged the color blue, held the form of a human woman. Or it looked human. It was dressed in a dark pant suit, hair slicked back and cut a few inches past the shoulder. Its face held no emotion, cold and detached, yet Clara's intuition held a spark of recognition at it's form.

"Welcome _Home_ ," the hologram echoed again, as if waiting for a response.

"Hello," Clara replied. "I'm-"

"You are," the hologram then turned its face towards Clara in acknowledgment, a flash of light momentarily scanned Clara from head to toe, "Clara Oswald. Born on the 23rd of November 1986 on," the image paused, then continued, "See: Various. A partial holder of land and residence with the Doctor and Melody Williams. Death date-"

The image halted abruptly and Clara's eyes had gone wide as saucers. The hologram blinked. Once. Twice.

"Unknown," it continued. "I welcome you to the system _Home_ , Clara Oswald. Allow me to give you a tour."

The hologram held out both palms, each containing two small choice boxes, one with the words YES and on one with the word NO. Clara reached out a hesitant finger and hovered over the YES option. She dipped her finger forward ever so slightly and the boxes disappeared, her choice seemingly accounted for.

"Thank you," recited the hologram. The image lead Clara into what appeared to be the lounge, its arms outstretched to present the room.

Any questions Clara had the hologram answered. When it came to security the hologram informed her that the planet's orbiting area was sealed and further security measures were left to the will of the land owners. The hologram faded away the second the tour was completed and Clara had harder time recollecting how the Doctor and River's house looked like in the future than she thought she would.

She firstly fetched out piece of paper, which she came across by peaking around in the upstairs drawers, and committed every memory she had of the Future Home down. From the forest of crystal matter to the see-through barrier, the passcode key that revealed a tall but earthly tree to the transport area that teleports you into the kitchen, and by the time she was done Clara felt more than accomplished.

Now came the waiting. The ever despairing, monotonous waiting. She opens a window on the second floor and gazes up at the stars, seeing the land spread out below, bare and knowing of what it could one day be.

 **X**

"She'll be waking up any moment now," Blu announces, making the Doctor stir from his very internal panic attack, ruthlessly going on in his head rather than outside and in the room with them.

"Right," the Doctor plants himself on the opposite side of his son, both looking down on River.

He is visibly expectant while Blu remains entirely resigned. His son dons a thin surgical mask and cap (both light blue) so that most of his face is covered along with most of his hair, all hidden away but his eyes. They flicker a myriad of emotions. Too brilliant and bright and blue, they are. Never can the Doctor recall there been such raw intensity pouring out from those eyes, eyes that so resemble the Doctor's own.

The grown versions of Blu the Doctor tends to bump into mostly hides behind the driest of wits. There is always a scowl at the ready or a cutting smile to be earned, and to earn it one must impress the boy. (The Doctor has learned not to bother.) He leads his journeys too much with his own personal wants and bends only when it is evident that the Doctor will not. They have had more disagreements together than similar thoughts. Not for the first time does the Doctor contemplate the horrors that would come upon the cosmos should Blu and his old friend Missy ever cross paths.

To take the information he has gained of his son, the insights the Doctor has glimpsed at, that which he _knows,_ and to now compare it with this magnificently jarring additional insight to his son, standing right in front of him... The Doctor can only surmise that, up until now, he still does not know his son. Not yet, not truly. And he finds that he wants to. He wants to learn every single aspect of their son, his and River's. Every great divide, all of Blu's flaws and all of the remarkable qualities. The Doctor _wants_ the chance to love his son. Possibly wants it more than he ever had in all this time of knowing Blu existed.

Jack Harkness chooses the Doctor's silent reflections as a ultimate moment to saunter back onto the med room. "We're right on track." And _bollocks_ , thinks the Doctor. How had he completely forgotten Harkness's presence here?

Jack throws a wolfish smile his way and the Doctor shakes his head, cursing beneath his breath. "And where were you?" he questions Jack, if a bit sharply. Pronunciation of the - _oo_ sticking to his tongue.

"Getting us home," replies Captain Jack slowly, grinning wider, like he's won some bloody prize. "You know, you get _really_ Scottish when you're flustered. It's hot."

"Have you no sense of when to behave yourself!" The Doctor scowls. And he absolutely does _not_ turn another shade of red under Harkness's dreadful help to an eyeful either. " _Don't_ ," he says. A warning.

The Doctor picks up River's hand out of reflex and wanting, pushing it against his cheek and finds himself shocked with how little warmth her skin has retained in the passing time. In all his recollections her skin had always been warm to the touch, cheeks rosy. She appears all but lifeless, still.

River gasps suddenly and the Doctor's hold on her hand tightens from the surprise. He glances over at Blu who motions for him to release hold of River's hand. He would really rather not but he does as his son requests. Then, her eyelids flutter open. River's eyes are tinged red and her irises dart this way and that, unable to find their focus.

Blu's voice is soothing but firm. "Don't try to move too quickly, Professor Song," he tells her. "You've been through quite an ordeal."

"Who are you?" she asks, urgently, and the Doctor cringes. Blu does not.

"I'm your physician at this moment," Blu informs her. "My name is Dr. Williams."

The surname calms her evidently. "My father," River exhales shakily, "he was a Williams, too."

"I am aware," Blu replies. He reaches his hand out towards her and stops, "May I take your pulse? You have the right to refuse." River's body goes very tense, as if she's coiling up from the inside out, eyes widening and breathing coming out in short puffs. "This is your choice, Professor," Blu reminds softly. "I am only here to make sure you are able to leave my care a healthy woman. You are out of the Library."

"I'm," River's breath catches and her eyes well up. She sniffles and has a very hard time containing her emotions. She can't seem to find her voice. Blu injects something into her IV and she settles, uncurling and tension dispersing. "I can't… I can't move."

"Effects of the extraction," Blu informs her. "You will be able to move in the near future, of that I assure you."

"My husband," River mentions. "He said, he was there, two of him, and he said he'd save me."

"Your husband is here." Blu confirms neutrally. "He may have had a bit of an accident though."

There is no mistaking her relief. She smiles. "He does that," she utters, eyelashes fluttering, fighting against the urge to shut.

"Yes. I must warn you that this accident in particular has given him a different face," Blu says without pause. "Are you alright with that?"

River's smile wavers. The Doctor can only watch, helpless, as she starts to curl into herself again and gentle sobs start to echo, the only sound in the room. Blu allows his mother to go through the motions of her distress before carrying on with anything else.

Watching River break down like this over the loss of his previous face is hard. The Doctor had doubts first and then assurances later that River could indeed look past a face, however River is not all herself yet, and it all hurts either way. He is suspended by the urge to turn and walk out, to walk away. To run.

He stays.

"But…. But is he _alright_?"

"He's alive, yes. Would you like to see him?" Blu asks.

A pause.

"Oh, yes. Please, yes." River requests, her voice small and dear, hiccuping from her sobs, and the Doctor's hearts weaken and strengthen. Both at the same time.

 **X**

Clara is minding her own business in the house when the Doctor pops up out of nowhere, River in tow. She decides to give the reunited couple a bit of space after River has settled in, only the Doctor forbids it. He escapes, heading right back down the stairs to the kitchen with the excuse of setting a kettle on and so Clara finds herself left alone with River in the quiet of the upstairs master bedroom.

"Do we know each other?" River asks. Her voice is sleep-slurred as she speaks and her eyes are red and droopy. She's downright exhausted.

"Er," Clara replies unintelligibly, going through the motions in her head on what a safe answer would be. She chooses, "One day," and figures an introduction wouldn't hurt. "I'm Clara, by the way. Clara Oswald. I'm here to help."

"So he's picked up another one," River murmurs softly. "I'm glad he did. Shouldn't be alone." And River drifts. Seconds, until: "Welcome aboard, Clara. Although, if we've met I hardly need to say that, do I?"

Clara grins. "It's a right joy to hear either way."

River is _tired_. Too tired to keep her eyes open waiting for the Doctor to make a pot of tea or whatever excuse he's dolling out. Clara brims with outrage. He's _hiding_. While River is finally home, the Doctor is busy running.

Clara finds him outside, sitting on the steps out front, steps away from his big blue box. Brooding.

"Welcome to Home, or whatever," she tells the Time Lord, slipping into the space at his side without invitation. It's doubtful she'd have gotten one and neither does she care for it.

"Home," the Doctor echoes back to her. He gives her a _look_ , a silent inquiry of sorts.

Clara waves a hand towards the house their future selves made damn sure they knew to inherit. "The hologram lady. she's all Welcome Home _this_ , enjoy Home _that_. I can't do this if that hologram stays. Popping in and out like she's my Gran or something."

A ghost of a smirk appears across the Doctor's face. "The planet has named itself equivalent of familial Earthly ties. It's Home, Clara. The hologram was not greeting you to a place, it's the name of the planet. We're literally on Planet _Home_."

Clara considers this, however bigger issues weigh out the need to know how he's come by this apparent information. "So," she says, with great care for where she's about to tread. "Seems you've got the Missus back for the hols."

"Indeed," the Doctor agrees softly - a solemn spoken fact.

Clara cannot for the life of her understand what was so upsetting about such a wonderful accomplishment. He should be raving mad with joy. The Doctor is home now and yet here sits, tense with trepidation of all that was to come.

Clara stares. She demands more answers without demanding and, in the end, stares a whole lot more. "That should shorten the Christmas list some, eh?"

The Doctor simply hums. Oblivious to all her unspoken judgments. "That it should," he says.

Clara sighs. "Merry Christmas, Doctor."

"Merry Christmas, Clara."


	15. World Enough And Time 1 & 2

**_World Enough And Time (1-2/?)_**

12/River & their timey-wimey brood, with Clara Oswald

 **Summary** : Beginnings.

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Long time no see! This next part of the series will delve into the beginnings of River's return from the Library and how she and the Doctor adjust to life again, which also means how they go about planting roots for their timey-wimey family *cough* especially Blu *cough*

The title of the fic is from the book The Time Traveler's Wife.

* * *

 ** _forward._**

His coat, the magician's one, was draped over a weakling branch on a tree that Clara had insisted needed planting. It barely reached past the Doctor's shoulder and he's not particularly fond of it but nevertheless he busied himself working around it. Inspecting wire after wire of meticulously synced security data due to be planted deep beneath the planet's surface.

The codes were intended to map around the property, keeping it safer from the actions of intruding forces or worse, curiosity. The work was tedious but the Doctor found it invigorating being able to move forward on a project. As much could not be said in his moments spent inside the confines of the residence he was slowly, inch by inch, attempting to better protect.

Other than the house sitting smackdab in the middle of the area, all else is bare. The land looked nothing like the images Clara tasked herself to sketch out for him and he's finding it quite hard to picture it as anything else but what it is at the moment, sat entirely alone. Ghostly.

Having had glimpses of the home himself, it's hard to picture this land with the one he knows to exist somewhere in the future. Clara talking his ear off about it makes it feel a little less like a dream, less of a blank page. Planting roots and waiting for it to flourish, to grow, that took patience.

It exists, he reminds himself, when that patience begins to wane.

A spark of static interrupts the silent plains around him and the Doctor doesn't have to glance at his visitor to guess at them. The soft footfalls approach, nearer and nearer.

"You really need to stop showing up without one of your makers," he tosses the scolding over his shoulder. A tiny hand grasps at his arm and the face of his granddaughter, Susan, fills his line of vision. She smiles at him adoringly, her orange hair a stark contrast to her fair skin. Freckles everywhere. She's brought along a saucer with a cup full of tea and she is trying very hard not to spill what remains inside the cup. The Doctor stops his tinkering and holds his hand out, accepting the cup and thanking Susan before taking a sip. The tea is lukewarm at best and there aren't nearly enough sugars for his liking but all this serves to inform him is that dear Susan has taken it upon herself to prepare this very special cuppa, and so he drinks it to the very last drop.

"You know," the Doctor says, glancing down at the little lass, "your mum and dad are going to worry over you being there and gone the next." And his eyes drift back over to the house sitting on Home with his wife tucked safely inside it. He sniffs and looks back at Susan. She's sat herself down beside him and beams, with not a care in the world on her young shoulders.

The Doctor points a finger at the vortex manipulator strapped, hanging much too large, on her delicate wrist.

"You should also tell your dear old dad, from me specifically, that he needs to take better care of that thing. To better keep it out of your reach, for instance." A set of disapproving eyebrows seem to delight her especially so he makes them extra cross. Just for her. "I mean what are you now, two?"

"I'm seven, grandfather!" Susan shrieks delightedly. Eyes wide and mirthful, tiny mouth twisting as she cackles joyously. Oh, to be young and have such an unweighted response. He so covets it. "And Daddy doesn't mind."

The Doctor merely scoffs at her certainty. "I very highly doubt that, but thank you for the tea, dear."

He sets the cup down and it clanks against it's saucer. He knows Susan needn't travel back with them, as he's glimpsed this particular set sitting in the cupboards of his home in the future.

Besides, if Blu really wanted his tea set back that insufferable son of his could come on by sometime and retrieve them. He's more than earned himself a lecture on the responsibilities of childcare. It's unsettling, the fact that Susan is time travelling at this age. Oh, that conversation could take hours. A good row would do the Doctor wonders, he reckons.

"Now," he stands and offers a hand to Susan, pulling her up with him as he does so, "let Gramps set you off." Susan holds out the wrist attached to the vortex manipulator and the Doctor takes a hold of her wrist, waving his sonic and setting the coordinates back right to the instance from which she came from. "Off you pop."

Susan's eyes twinkle with contemplation and he wonders just where she's learned such a whimsical gesture. "Is Nana not herself yet?" she queries. All the air of astuteness a child simply shouldn't posses.

"Your Gran is perfectly fine, Susan. And safe, she's," he swallows, "home."

The next thing he knows his granddaughter's arms are attempting to throw themselves around his neck, only she's a size or two short for the task. He bends his knees to accommodate her and hears her little sigh of contentment once she's roped her spindly arms around him and hugging tight.

"Promise you'll visit soon grandad, please oh _please_ say you'll promise," she begs with all the insistent desperation of a child, making it impossible to refuse her.

The Doctor shuts his eyes at her request, purposely ignoring the nattering going on in his head about how he doesn't do this, doesn't hide his face anymore, and tells his thoughts to _shove off_. He hugs his granddaughter back, hand cupping the back of her head gently and with great care.

"If time allows me, Susan," he avows, "you know I'll do my best," only to open his eyes again and find his arms empty, the girl now gone and the lonely house on the planet Home all that's left in his line of sight.

* * *

 **(2) Summary:** _It takes all but milliseconds for the Doctor to calculate how vastly unprepared for this moment he is, now that it is in fact a single moment away._ \- fitting in and unseen moment

... the Post-Library River meeting 12 for the first time after getting her out was cut in the previous collection, here you have it; short  & sweet

* * *

 ** _and rewind._**

 _"I must warn you that this accident in particular has given him a different face. Are you alright with that?"_

 _"But…. But is he alright?"_

 _"He's alive, yes. Would you like to see him?"_

 _"Oh, yes. Please yes."_

It takes all but milliseconds for the Doctor to calculate how vastly unprepared for this moment he is, now that it is in fact a single moment away.

River is a vision of bruises and burns as he looks upon her now, just barely awake and out of the Library. Her hair is a combination of colors, from usual honeyed blonde he's used to, now favoring a particular twinge of red, strands and strands tangled between the other, but despite these differences she's solid and real and utterly radiant to look upon. The Doctor watches her, watching him. Her tried eyes widen a fraction, taking him in, they search and question. No doubt she is mapping the new lines of this face, aligning them in contrast against to the chinny boy she's known so well, the one she's previously gallivant across all of space and time with.

The silence between them swells. It's further punctuated with all the words stumbling and sticking to the back of the Doctor's throat, too rough to use upon this moment, so he figures it apt to simply steal hers. They're known and easy, these words, gentled with familiarity and strengthened because they hold more than one meaning.

"Hello, sweetie," he says.

River's eyes, murky from fatigue, spark with magnetic recognition. The "Hello," returned to him is offered with equal intimacy, throaty and wholly reminiscent of another hello, bringing forth memories of another time, another face, and the two of them standing beside an old cot with a leaf that hadn't a word for _pond_.

"I," River's voice falters and her brow furrows, seemingly grappling to understand just how weak her body truly is at this moment. Her hand seeks outward and the Doctor readily grasps at it, giving it a squeeze of reassurance.

The Doctor spies Blu working on some kind of injection device out of his mother's line of sight and struggles within himself at the urge to stop him. To let River consent to it first, only he knows she's not in a fully conscious state at the moment and she has various other injuries that need to be dealt with, so he bends forward slightly, face aligning with River's so she's looking right at him and nowhere else.

"I'm betting you have a slew of questions for me, Professor," he whispers, mouth slanting upward in what he hopes to be a softer expression than this face has been gifted. "It'll have to wait for now. Let me take care of you first."

River's eyelids droop, every bit of her fighting for control only control is fleeting. She wrestles with the idea, pinning him with an agonized sort of look before managing a single nod, and then the light in her eye flickers, hazed. She passes over into a sedated slumber.

"She won't be out for long," Blu says.

"Past you is about to wake up out there," Harkness says, rejoining the room.

The Doctor swallows, steeling himself but not once looking away from his wife. "You know where to go from here?"

And Blu responds automatically, "Who exactly do you take me for?"


	16. World Enough And Time 3

**_World Enough And Time (3/?)_**

12/River & their timey-wimey brood, with Clara Oswald

 **Summary** : _It's new and fat with unmarked pages, encased in sleek black leather binding with a bright blue ribbon wrapped around its middle just waiting to be tugged. She doesn't remember buying it however the item is familiar enough to scratch at the surface of something. It's all detail and no answer, remarkable yet different somehow._ \- Post-Library River wakes up

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Chapter title from the book 'The Time Traveller's Wife'. ... And back to our regular scheduled programming, we're moving forward with the story. And there's a Harry Potter reference because, I mean. Why wouldn't there be? Also ;

* * *

 _"She was uploaded into the Library for purposes of upholding timelines so somewhat, to some extent, **she'll be split in halves**. She'll remember you but she'll forget, too. Her DNA will exhaust itself, acting as a fully operational host one moment and existing as a shade of herself the next. Going and coming back. Being where she needs to be, when she needs to be there."_

\- Fear Will Bring You Home, Chapter 5

* * *

 ** _the first book I ever loved_**

The book at her bedside looks more like a tome than a personal journal. It's new and fat with unmarked pages, encased in sleek black leather binding with a bright blue ribbon wrapped around its middle just waiting to be tugged. She doesn't remember buying it however the item is familiar enough to scratch at the surface of something. It's all detail and no answer, remarkable yet different somehow.

She doesn't touch it. Not at first.

Be it from curiosity or muscle memory, the book compels her so. It's there every morning when she opens her eyes and remains a bulky shadow at her bedside every night.

One afternoon, she tugs at the ribbon and it falls away easily, velvety soft between her fingertips. She isn't tempted to throw it away at first and so River wraps it around her wrist, tying a knot so it stays there. Kept.

She takes the black leather journal from its place and pulls it onto her lap. It's not as heavy as she'd imagined it to be. She hauls it open, skipping from the middle of the book and back to the first page. It's blank and the whiteness of the page is so stark against her fingertips, against everything, so bright with its emptiness, that River begins noticing most things around her appear grey and dull, too.

It's alarming, but not.

River turns back to her bedside and searches inside the drawer there for a pen. Finding one, she runs her free hand over the blank page, preserving its beginning, before letting pen meet on paper.

 _Diary of River Song_

It says.

She can't help but feel that she's written that before.

It matters not, she has things to do. Get up out of bed, go to work, visit her parents for dinner after, and then come back home… _home_ … and…

River places the diary back on her bedside. She really does need to get dressed.

 **X**

River walks into the clinic room, folder in hand, grinning.

"Doctor Song!" her patient greets, every morning, like clockwork.

She's been treating this particular child every day for as long as she can remember and River can never remember their face.

"And how are you doing today, darling?" River questions, enveloping the child in a hug.

"I'm quite well," the faceless child responds, playing with River's stethoscope until River tugs it up over the top of her head and hands it over to them.

"I'll just see about that," River says, opening the patient file and taking a seat to conduct the check-up.

 **X**

"I picked up some Chinese and wine," says River upon arriving at her parent's front door with a handful of bags. Rory takes the bags for her and sets them in the kitchen while Amy hugs her good and tight.

"Oh, I missed you," says her mother. The way Amy says it is always threatening to bring River near tears and she doesn't know why, she simply hugs her mother back just as fiercely.

"It's been a day, mother," River eventually responds, her face hidden behind strands and strands of her mother's bright red hair. Amelia pulls back and tugs River over towards the kitchen where Rory is already setting the table. They eat, they laugh, they drink.

It's all perfect, a little slice of heaven, however the table is set for four. Always four. And River can't shake the empty seat though she never ever asks why, or rather who?

She heads home when the night starts turning darker than it needs to be. It's times like this she's so grateful to live right beside her parents. It's a dream, really. It fills her with such warmth, and such longing. She doesn't' know where that comes from.

She goes home, takes a bath and tucks right into bed.

The journal is at her bedside.

Tomorrow, she says. Tomorrow she'll start the first entry.

 **X**

Every day is the same.

Every day she wakes up, looks at the journal at her bedside, decides tomorrow is the day, gets dressed, goes to her job as head doctor in the town clinic, treats her one patient, has dinner with her parents, always with four places set, stays to enjoy their company until the light outside gets too dark and River decides it best to head out to her own home, right beside theirs, lest the darkness turns into something dreadful like shadows or something, and finally, finally, drifts safety off to sleep in the comfort of her own bed.

River tries not to think too hard on the stark whiteness of the blank pages in the journal, or why it bothers her. She doesn't miss how the only other colors she identifies in her life are the bright red shade of her mother's hair, or how the bluest of blues shines out from the ribbon she has tied around her wrist.

River Song both loves and loathes how simple her life is. The continuity feels new and like it will slip right through her grasp, which she thinks odd, because why would it? It's all she's ever known. Her parents with her, day by day. Her job. Her life. It's all ordinary and sorted. Nothing to fill a blank page over.

 **X**

She's on her way to pick up some Chinese for her parents when a book, bright as the ribbon on her wrist, catches her eye from behind a shop window. Her legs are moving before she decides otherwise, walking into this shop she's never even been in before and determined to seek out more on this blue book. The book that's calling to her as no book ever has.

She looks around the shop, a bookstore, one she hadn't even had the decency to get the name of before waltzing on inside. The book displayed on the shop window is nowhere to be found inside but there are a slew of other countless books stacked in all directions. River begins to look for a shop keeper, knows there has to be one somewhere.

"Excuse me," she calls out to no one in particular, "I'm looking for a book."

"Are you now?" the disembodied voice rasps from nowhere. That's not normal but neither does it alarm her.

"Y-yes," she confirms. "The blue one at the window. Might you have another copy?"

"Oh, that old thing." The voice says, awfully fond. "I'm afraid not. That one is a rarity," a pause, "one of a kind. Some would say it's just a book on a shelf, see, but that's not true. It was a gift."

"So it's not a book, then." She concludes sadly, fearing if it were of the personal sort it would be less likely to be sold away. But then again, why would it be displayed if it weren't for sale?

"It was a gift from a man to his wife, long ago, before she was entirely his wife. Time can be funny like that."

She listens to the voice with rapt attention, completely invested in knowing all about that blue book displayed on the shop window, convinced that she had to get her hands on it. There's something more than simply to want or to have it, but rather a sort of _belonging_.

"And so what happens?" River asks.

"Can't tell you that, can I? Spoilers."

The corner of River's lips curls. "Yes," and suddenly she understood. "It has to be lived."

 **X**

The blue book sits atop of the black leather journal. It _fits_ there, River decides. She's quite happy just to have the both of them in such close proximity. They seem to intrinsically belong together, only River's not yet reached a point where she's inclined to open the blue book and delve into whatever contents lie inside. This also is not strange to her in the least.

It's hers now, she knows this. That's enough.

 **X**

The blue gets bluer, brighter.

The red of Amy's hair starts to dull.

It hurts to look at them.

 **X**

 _left me like a book on a shelf_

 _didn't even say goodbye_

 _i'm not really here_

 ** _you are always here to me_**

 **X**

She bolts up in her bed, sweaty and full of adrenaline. Full of life.

Demon's Run to the Library. It's all there.

Colors. They're there, too.

But Amy and Rory. They're _here_. They shouldn't be, she knows they shouldn't be. But they are. They're right next door. And four places.

It's a particular agony to know that they still set four places, even here. Wherever here is. For him. For their Doctor.

 _And how could she have gone and forgotten the Doctor?_

She picks up her diary, the one filled and lived. The one left behind. She reads and reads from page to page.

Morning comes and the sun is a bright, brilliant yellow. Like sunflowers.

 **X**

River concludes that the liveliness of the world around her depends on shades of ignorance. The colors, depending on how often she relives the stories in her blue journal, either grow more vibrant or they begin to dull.

And the days are all the same. Exactly the same. Unfortunately, the brighter reality may seem doesn't necessarily make any of it more real. Not now that she knows.

She goes back to the bookstore, the place where it all changed. She looks through the rows and rows of countless bookshelves, shouts out for the disembodied voice she's heard only the once until her voice is hoarse and is merely met with silence.

She tries to stay at home, forego work and her fake job and fake life but that only serves to kick start another day. One where she's expected to follow through the godforsaken routine. So she goes through her days, compliant but only up to a point. She yells at the child without a face and breaks all of her parent's crystal. There's an instance where she even sets fire to the bookstore.

She rages and cries and reads her diary, driven mad with the knowledge of what is real and whatever this in-between is. Because she won't forget, refuses to forget. No when it lets her _see_ because seeing is the only way to remember all of her memories, to hold on to what's hers. She _earned_ them. Her life and loves and pains and parents and husband. They may just be stories here, but River Song has always been a woman made of stories.

And it seems so simple, then. In the end.

River climbs into bed at the end of another ridiculous day. She picks up the blue book full of the words of her past, setting it aside, and heaves the unwritten black leather journal onto her lap, opening it up with her pen at the ready.

 _We're all stories_ , she wrote. Then waits.

She gasps at the ink that appears beneath her own script, in printed Gallifreyan, with writing she isn't yet familiar with but she knows him anyway.

 _Gotcha,_ it says.

 _This is all a bit Chamber Of Secrets, sweetie_ , she writes back. Just because. _I'm ready to get the hell out of here, all the same._

 _Always with the cheek_ , is the response.

Oh, and the longing. That's where it was from.

 **XXX**

She wakes up. There is no dullness in color. Her strength is a challenge. Her parents are gone and her husband is there wearing a new face. She had not intended to balk at the sight of him when she rouses, and she'll swear she did not, but she sort of forgets that he's changed. It lasts up until she sees that look in his eye, the one he's always had when it came to looking at her. The one he's helpless against, all soppy nostalgic idiot-like. Then it all comes back to her, then she remembers.

"Sorry I'm late," she murmurs tiredly. "Traffic was hell."

"That's my line," he says, brushing her curls back from her face. It brings a smile to her lips, only she swears the more she looks upon him, she can notice creases and lines that hadn't been there before. Granted she's only looked upon this face once.

"How long have I been out?" she questions firstly, and the Doctor looks away. That's an answer in itself. "Doctor," she warns him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt in her palm with ease. She's grateful to see some strength has returned to her at the least.

"Three months," he blurts quietly and with guilt, looking everywhere but at her.

"I've," River's eyes skim the room, from one side to the other, noticing the bedroom she's in quite differs from wherever else she'd just woken up from. "Where am I?"

"Home, River," says the Doctor. She can see a question build in his eyes, a hope. "You're home."


	17. World Enough And Time 4

**_World Enough And Time (4/?)_**

12/River & their timey-wimey brood

 **Summary** : _His every action appears practiced and his manner terse, as if time was meant to run out on him. Despite his finicky nature River's curiosity merely swells, prompting her to venture into the situation at hand. "I've been asleep for three months, you say?"_

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Chapter title/quote used are from the book 'The Time Traveller's Wife'. Also, turns out getting a job in the real world doesn't exactly do wonders when your hobby is trying to write a steady series. Enjoy!

 **AN2:** Shoutout to _Katherine the Fabulous_ thanks for the great reviews. Really appreciate it :D

* * *

 _"Maybe I'm dreaming you. Maybe you're dreaming me; maybe we only exist in each other's dreams and every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other."_

* * *

 ** _every morning when we wake up we forget all about each other_**

"You must be famished," the Doctor proclaims, rushing himself out of the bedroom to get her everything she could possibly need. A cup of tea is sought out first, which in turn serves to conclusions of needing a couple of biscuits to go along with that, now he's arguing with himself about scones (Rory's recipe) and whether he should instant bake or run out to steal some from an earlier time.

River merely watches, motionless, as the Doctor's nervous energy grows, boundless to her eyes. It makes her feel unspeakably tiny and boxed in. His every action appears practiced and his manner terse, as if time was meant to run out on him. Despite his finicky nature River's curiosity merely swells, prompting her to venture into the situation at hand.

"I've been asleep for three months, you say?" she inquires.

Prodding at issues he so obviously wants to avoid isn't new, she thinks, noting the tension and how it curls up in his shoulders, making him hunch slightly. The reaction conjures up an instantaneous recognition but however brief it skitters away from her grasp the second it appears.

"Please," she begs of him. Watching and waiting really isn't going to cut it this time and enough was enough.

River's hands seek outward almost instinctively, wishing to grab hold of him. A solid thing, for she feels sorely lacking; wholly untethered. Only he was too far away, practically at the other side of the room and a part of her, a horridly childish sentiment, screams that she's trapped and no one but the spaceman is coming for her. A sensible part pacifies that fear and instead she presses her open palm down at the spot beside her on the mattress and hopes it proves somewhat inviting, not just desperate.

The Doctor has long stopped his chatter and stares at her palm. Whatever composure he possessed loses its neutrality the longer he stares. As if he could no longer hide the damage, not all by himself.

His legs move forward, closing the distance between them only instead of taking up the spot beside River, the Doctor takes his place at the end of the bed where her feet are so snugly covered.

"It's been three months since you've left the Library," he says softly, voice all the gravellier the softer it goes. "Three months since I brought you here, the planet called Home."

The news was a shocker, no doubt. River takes a steadying breath and looks about the room, trying to stick something in the place to her memory and comes up blank.

"Rubbish name, the more I breathe on it," he adds, still not quite looking at her. He smiles, eyes crinkling. He's bashful, she realizes, all at once. River gets caught up in the expression and feels her hearts lurching at the sight of it.

The timeboy she remembers had been a tad bashful around her, too. She imagines this face will certainly contrast parts of the man she first fell in love with, her nostalgic idiot with the bowtie. Though this is exactly the same man differences and similarities do tend to run skin deep. Glimpses of the past will always linger there and River's grateful to them.

"And so I've been unconscious this whole time?"

"Not exactly," the Doctor's blurts. He opens his mouth as if he wants to say more on the subject only before he does, he decides not to.

" _Doctor_ ," she says this in warning.

"You have woken up before," he chooses to say instead, "but you've never managed to fully stay here. Not yet."

River feels herself smile, born more out of a deep discomfort than actual happiness. She imagines it to be a truly grim expression. An attempt to hide at her truer reaction. "But how can that be? You're saying I've been awake, _here_? But then why don't I remember any of that?"

"River," the Doctor winced, "just take a breath for me." His hands, for the first time in her waking, seek to initiate contact.

The first touch.

His fingers are longer, palms wider, and there are calluses she doesn't remember ever having been there before. The caress is unknown to her, yes, but _this_ she understands nonetheless. Knows it for what it is; a proclamation. River follows it. Pushes herself forward and out from under the covers until she's as close as she wants to be, resting her head atop his shoulder, falling into the crook of his neck and pressing her body, molding it against his own. Closing her eyes, sighing, she feels his heartbeats thud in his chest. _Comfort_.

His arms hesitate, down at his sides, before he brings them up and around her. Cautiously he hugs her closer to him.

"I won't lie to you, this is all vastly complicated," he states, the words tickling her hairline, "but one thing at a time. Okay? Can you do that for me? Have patience?"

"I can," she declares, lifting her face to meet his, seeking and holding his gaze. "You out of anyone know I can do that."

"That I do," the Doctor responds softly, eyes glinting, like they both know a secret the universe isn't yet privy to. "Listen," he swallows, "I'm going to need to ring your physician. He's treated you since we got you out of the Library. Once he's run a few tests, then we can discuss this all further, alright?"

River has no recollection of this person the Doctor is referring to and neither has she missed the joining of the fact that this unknown person was also involved in her rescue.

"This doctor you mention," River utters quietly, pressing her head back onto her husband's shoulder, "we trust him?"

"With our very lives, dear," the Doctor speaks with an air of conviction. "With everything."


	18. World Enough And Time 5

**_World Enough And Time (5/?)_**

12/River & their timey-wimey brood

 **Summary** : _Travelling or not, he is not made to journey alone._

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Chapter title is from the book 'The Time Traveller's Wife'.

* * *

 ** _Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass_**

Today marks the eight instance River wakes up, the same as before, with no recollection of doing so since her rescue.

He'd been told, of course. Blu had stressed the point and even made him promise and of all the things the Doctor had expected but he hadn't expected… _this_.

This catastrophic, despairing bubble of sorts wherein River would lapse into consciousness with her memory intact or without, lasting barely a full day and then she'd be gone again. Like a flickering light of a candle in a dark room and the Doctor would have to hold his breath in her presence, hold it until he was incapable of doing so. She'd linger, alive in his sight or gathered up in his arms, twined to his heart strings and then he'd breathe and she'd flicker, gone away the next.

He could accuse time of stopping on him, here, but no. No. Time had not stopped. It merely hesitated, clung about, taking to hanging its weight around his shoulders, growing older every day, whilst he hovered with bated breath for another miracle, another haunting; her awakening.

Blu had instructed him to call the moment she'd come to. That he'd need to take note for the state of her recovery and in truth it always felt somewhat like time the Doctor would much rather spend for himself, time that was stolen. But of course he was being foolish and selfish with such thoughts and so he'd relent. Give the time away to their son and hope that whatever significant moment else was to be his.

The timing gnawed at him though. It seemed more than coincidence that Blu's visits and River's waking always happened without Clara in presence. Clara herself has noticed this but she's much too adept to state it aloud, coming to the conclusions the Doctor has arrived to at all on his own if not just specifically due to foreknowledge he has and she does not.

It's fixed. This, whatever it is. Whatever is or has or will transpire between Blu and Clara has a course and time cannot bend to a meeting that is not meant to happen. Not without consequence, which means Clara's particular presence on the planet Home is for the Doctor's benefit.

Travelling or not, he is not made to journey alone.

"She's awake," the Doctor reports into the burner phone Blu had given him.

Their son arrives in moments. The Doctor follows after him as they head to the bedroom River is awake and alert in.

Blu introduces himself as _Will_.


	19. World Enough And Time 6

**_World Enough And Time (6/?)_**

12/River & their timey-wimey brood

 **Summary** : _His eyes are startlingly blue. This physician her husband has called upon. He's young. He calls himself Will but doesn't produce much more than that. His hair appears to be black with a hint of soft curls and he scowls more than she's sure he realizes, a familiar scowl that she can't for the life of her place_

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Chapter title used is from the song "Once Upon A December" from Anastasia.

* * *

 ** _Things my heart used to know, things it yearns to remember_**

His eyes are startlingly blue. This physician her husband has called upon. He's young. He calls himself Will but doesn't produce much more than that. His hair appears to be black with a hint of soft curls and he scowls more than she's sure he realizes, a familiar scowl that she can't for the life of her place. River remains unnaturally quiet as this young man inspects her. He takes her pulse, checks her temperature, tests her sight and hears her heartbeats. He doesn't seem surprised by them at the least either.

"Everything seems to be in order," he reports, stepping away from her and allowing her some personal space, which she appreciates. "How do you feel as of now?" Will asks, peering at her with what looks to be genuine interest. "Any vague aches or dissociative manners? The gaps in your memory are normal," he assures, "reality seemingly slipping through your fingers?" It's a suggestion, she realizes. He's giving her patterns to latch onto, words to make sense of. She feels a weight of gratitude for him suddenly.

She glimpses the Doctor hovering and hesitates. "Actually," River replies stoutly, sitting up straighter, "I'd quite like to know what exactly has been happening to me. No technicalities or dancing around the situation, I just want the truth."

A smirk works its way onto Will's face. He appears to be rather smug. "And I, Professor Song, personally believe you're owed as such," he says, and waits.

River looks to her husband and then back to Will, irritation taking hold the more the room stays silent.

"You've woken up approximately eight times," her husband chimes in finally. "This instance included and it's never been for more than a few hours."

"When you've succumbed back into your slumber, it would appear that you hold no recollection of previous conscious episodes," Will informs.

"So I've done this eight times already?" River can hardly believe that however she supposes she has little choice but to accept what is being told to her. The Doctor wouldn't lie about this no matter what such nonsense it sounded.

"So far in, yes," Will confirms. "You are waking in closer intervals every time," he makes mention, "It took a month between the first time you woke to the second, and between the last time before today, it has been a week and five days. I can only conclude by those signs that you are getting closer to a permanent state of consciousness."

"But why am I not conscious?" River demanded. "Why am I in this state? What's happened to me that I'm gone so often, and so without recollection?"

It flustered her and angered her, this situation, reminding her of a childhood she'd rather not recall wherein she'd lost time and mental faculties so easily and so without control.

The thought occurs to her.

"Have I asked this all of you before?" It's numbing. The dread filling up in her stomach, the chill taking its wholehearted hold.

"Once or twice," Will answers her without skipping a beat, eyes unblinking and twinkling with some mischief of a sort, but kind.

It calms her.

"I'm sorry," she looks away, wanting to hide away her tears, her fists clenching and unclenching.

Unexpectedly, Will's own hands reach out and grasp both of hers in his own, holding them. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Professor," the young man replies. His voice is steady and there is no arguing against it.

River exhales shakenly and decides she likes him.

"Thank you," she whispers, one hand slipping form his hold and wiping a fallen tear from her eye.

She looks up to her husband and finds him looking at Will fondly, an awe in his gaze that only solidifies her quickly decided feelings for this stranger.

"What now?" River appeals her inquiry to Will, silently pushing for a good solid answer instead of a flimsy ideal of hope.

Will smirks. It's a soppy, optimistic shade of an expression that takes her back to a face she once knew, a face dearly loved, and River, beside herself, breaks out in a smile. Knowing without reason that somehow it's going to be fine. It's all going to be alright. She's in good hands.

She looks up at the Doctor and simply beams. Thankful that he's found this young man, wherever he found him, because she feels safe between the two of them. Oh, how she ever could have doubted...

"It's complicated," Will responds, confident. They're echoed words the Doctor had given her. "Lucky for you, complicated is my favorite word."

Chuffed, River laughs. "We're going to get on very well, you and I."

Will peers back at the Doctor, very nearly gloating, and says, "Oh, Professor, you have no idea."

The Doctor arches a brow and scoffs but he doesn't say a word to the contrary.


	20. World Enough And Time 7

**_World Enough And Time (7/?)_**

12/River & their timey-wimey brood

 **Summary** : _Plain as the future written on his face._

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Chapter title used is from the song "Once Upon A December" from Anastasia.

* * *

 ** _and a song someone sings_**

The Doctor had excused himself to make her another cup of tea, River nodded, eagerly endeared by this Will and watching as he gathered up his things. He was preparing to take leave of them and River's curiosity of this man was all but sated. She took to asking, "How is it that you know my husband? If you don't mind me prying, that is."

"I don't," Will responded, wry smirk a fixture on his face. "We all have a fellow called Captain Harkness in common, I'm assured."

Ah, so that's explanation enough. Regardless, River is helpless to the smile that spreads across her face at this news. "So you know our dear Jack?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, yes," Will nodded his head vigorously. It is apparent that he's just as delighted to tell her of this connection as she is to be listening. "Quite well and for many a year," Will explained. "In fact, I've been close to marrying him countless times in our friendship. He throws a hell of a stag night, as I'm sure you know. Thing is, I'm just much too young for him."

River laughs out right. "There is that whole saying," and Will looks over to her, waiting for her to continue. "The one about age being just a number, but I get a sense that you're just a little heartbreaker."

Will shrugs, as if he's helpless to it. Also, a faint coloring appears high on his cheeks. He takes her teasing for a compliment it seems.

"I've almost married Jack a handful of times myself," she confessed this easily. "I met him later in my life, long after I had a trinket of his in my possession. It was a chance meeting. I'd known so much about him at that point. Much like the Doctor's other companions I had to keep track of them and their timelines," Will nodded, which River took to say that he knew about that, too. She continued, "Jack didn't even know I knew the Doctor when we first met but… he's smart. He caught on eventually and we got on swimmingly. He can be just as incorrigible as me sometimes. I'm positive that's why the Doctor never put us in the same room together before than."

She laughed, "Jack Harkness has never been anything but a true friend to me and, if I'm honest, just the reaction of a certain husband of mine would have made the nuptials worth it. Of course, don't tell him that."

"But of course," Will agreed heartily, his smile earnest. "My reasoning is something of a same nature actually. I'd personally love to see the look on my father's face to the news."

"He doesn't approve?" River wondered, her eyes narrowing.

"Certainly not," Will replied instantly. "Er, um. Not of Jack anyway," he felt it best to correct any false insinuations as he could. "See, my father's a bit of an old codger in his late age so Jack kind of proves a bit much for him. Dad gets irritated easily."

River nodded, understanding immediately what Will was getting at. She knew very well how Jack could be otherworldly for some folk. In her opinion that's what made him absolutely wonderful but not everyone was made for life on the edge of the fantastical.

"I uh, I haven't take my father's views into consideration when making choices for myself in a very long time, so…," Will paused. He appeared deep in thought for but mere moments, out of it the next, "But even then it isn't enough to sway me to marry Jack." He grinned tightly, "I mean unless I really, really wanted to. The idea of my dad's face remains a definite bonus though."

They each grinned at each other.

"I do hope I remember this," River admitted sadly. She'd like to remember this young man with his bright eyed mischief and kindly sharp smile.

Will faltered, blinking away the possibility with a curt shake of his head. "I believe you will eventually. It'll come back to you at the right moment, all of it," he declared certainly.

River gazed into those startlingly blue eyes, unblinking and fiercely assured. And that's when she knows. It's plain as the future written on his face.

"You know it has to," she predicted, "but you don't know how or when, or even how long it'll take."

Will bent his head, the snapping sound of his suitcase unfailingly loud in the momentary quiet. "A pleasure as always," he replied flatly, "Professor."

"Till' next time," River responded, the accumulated weight of foreknowledge stuffing itself into every crevice of her life once more.

 **X**

River sat on the bed she'd been unknowingly confided to for three months and tried to make peace with the intrusion of the future settling itself out so without consideration in her current present, something she'd seemingly never been able to exist without. She tried not to be angered by such an exhausting route she would, yet again, have to manage. Tried to breathe within the fact that the future was seemingly already written and that there would be no other option than that which she lived through today.

She'd already done it. She'd lived it. She'd overcome the burden of time. Laid her life down for it. She simply couldn't stand the notion that she had to live through it all again, and for what? For this? This alienating existence where she wasn't even actively participating?

"River?"

It was the Doctor. His palm was cool as he cupped her cheek, fingertip brushing away the tears that had completely escaped her notice.

He looked sad. Agonized. His eyes held nothing but heartfelt apologies.

 _He knows._

She wondered if she'd already let him have it. If she'd raged at him for it yet or if she'd even gone as far as vocally blamed him for it.

Her hearts hurt at the idea.

 _But he's done the best he could,_ she reasoned, _and faults are trivial matters, we've both had our fair share._

"Hello, sweetie," she mustered.

It's a pitiful half-whispered sort. Shattering not dreams but the reality time has formed around them, and for the first time that she could really recall, quite openly, he broke.

His face fell and he crawled onto the bed beside her, his face dry one second and wet the next. The Doctor curled around her, taking up the space beside her, palms clutching at her arms, her sides, her neck. Desperately determined to hold her for as long as she was there.

Held motionless with the desire to scream, River pulled at him, too. Claiming the space between them, torturous in all its unjust existence, and vowed _this is ours, this is ours._ It's the least and the most they deserved.

Her mouth opened, the emotions building up inside of her, intent on wailing and sobbing, however her body coiled, rigid in an instant, entirely withholding. The cry falls silent in the universe, River not daring to let the noise bubble up past her lips with a voice but just barely letting it echo in the ghost of a scream. It toppled out and into the Doctor's shoulder nonetheless. The pressure of it is felt, the exhale of a gasp in pure mourning, and the Doctor pulled her closer. Holding them and housing their universe in his arms and his in hers, suspended just outside their hearts, whilst it's allowed.

Time being theirs for the moment, they each broke beautifully.

 **X**

"You've lingered," the Doctor commented softly in the wakings of the following morning, returning to the kitchen once he'd fully assured himself that River slithered away from his grasp, freshly absent of consciousness.

"Figured you'd rather not be alone," Blu explained his presence. "I know I wouldn't."

The Doctor's cleared his throat before he replied. "Yes, well, I'm not you."

"Right," Blu's tone was slightly derisive, one more out of habit than actual cruelty. "How could I forget? You'd rather play the part of a liar."

He's all nerve endings, raw and ruined, and so when the Doctor turns to his son he's devoid of any actual venom but not completely left without feeling. "If this is why you've stayed, Blu, to cause a row, I'd really rather you'd go."

The Doctor's voice cracked and Blu exhaled noisily, nose crinkling in apology.

"Alright believe it or not," Blu defended, "it wasn't my intention to cause you more... pain."

And they both wince, the sight of the expression most identical.

"It's just too easy with you." Blu added in explanation, ducking his head almost shamefully and shoving his hands in his pockets. "It's what we do, we take the piss."

The Doctor straightens, eyeing his son longer than Blu thinks is necessary, and huffed. "Naturally. No actual conversation, nothing of substance, just noise filling banter," the Doctor's hearts ached painfully at the thought. "And that's all there is to us."

The Doctor sniffs, sighing with irritation and raising his palms to cover up his face. He doesn't especially feel like crying in front of this rather uncongenial-esque son of his who would probably try to save the situation by mocking him rather than express actual sympathy.

"It's not all," Blu replies uncomfortably.

Fantastic. And this was exactly what the Doctor wished to avoid. The pity.

"It's not all," Blu reiterated more firmly.

A hand, heavy and comforting, grasped at the Doctor's shoulder abruptly. It's appearance was a shock to his overly isolated musings. Blu drew his father closer, pulling him in for a hug.

"Trust me," Blu urged on quietly, "I'm the only one of us who actually knows, yeah?"

The Doctor, helpless to hide his hollow tears and surprised by the act of actual compassion, merely gripped onto his son tighter, and cried.


	21. World Enough And Time 8

**_World Enough And Time (8/?)_**

12/River & their timey-wimey brood

 **Summary** :Planning a ridiculous housewarming party was not something he had expected to throw himself into but one hypothetical afternoon arguing over the logistics with Clara flew right on by.

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Chapter title from the song "Here We Go Again" by Alexz Johnson

* * *

 ** _here we go again, back to where we've never been_**

Clara dawdles around the kitchen cupboards, specifically the area around the kitchen sink that had a great big window smackdab in the middle of it. There was a pile of exams she'd brought along with her that covered most of the dining table and needed grading, however she'd readily abandoned them in order to shuffle on over to peek at the Time Lord, whose grunting and muttering was inaudible to her, as he finished up the security system on land. The Tardis was parked there, too, several paces down from her Thief. The Doctor work on some wires in the groundwork before sonicing the frequency and dashing back into his ship, moving it onward and continuing the process, all until he disappeared around the corner of the house. Mad scientist gone madder. Or something of that sort.

Clara had spied upon the Doctor working tirelessly on that very security system outside for too long now. The restlessness of the entire situation was getting to him, that and the lack of adventures to occupy himself with. It's not like he'd jump at the chance to go anywhere anyway. With River being parked upstairs and in such a vulnerable state it's like he's completely lost interest in anything other than seeing this whole thing through, which Clara's quite proud of him for. There is however no denying that rooting himself down in one place has stirred him into a right state. The day to day encouraging him to become a whole other level of fastidious about the things that needed doing, be it inside or out. He's back and forth with himself, becoming irritatingly particular and snappish one second and then downright sullen and standoffish the next. Clara's never sure which Doctor she's going to get.

"Lackluster backyards caught your fancy this time of day?"

Clara jumps at the bark of his voice, he sounds rough and tired and annoyed. She's been caught upon in his abrupt appearance, so obviously prying, and whirls around to face him. The Doctor is placing his toolbox on the floor, his eyes knowing and disapproving when they meet hers once he's upright.

"A view is a view," she replies casually, giving a one-shouldered shrug. "Beauty in everything if you know how to look."

The Doctor cracked a thin smile, teeth bared slightly, welcoming her evasion, and says, "So how goes the grading, teach?"

Clara shuts the cupboard she had opened uselessly and wanders back over towards the table, picking up a single exam and grimacing, "Devastating. Grammar and teenagers don't make for the best combination."

"Truer words," the Doctor responds, moving quickly and gracefully over towards the sink and filling up a glass of water for himself.

"I have a maybe suggestion," says Clara, peering over at him speculatively. "I know this place isn't completely security proof yet but you do have friends. People you trust. I was thinking how about throwing a housewarming party?"

The Doctor blinked at her with his owlish eyes several times and frowns. "Right. I should just sit River on a chair in the sitting room and let people talk _at_ her rather than _to_ her." He gulped down his glass and eyed her.

Clara fully expects the response considering his temperament lately, but she urges the idea on, "I'm just trying to help."

The Doctor set his glass of water on the island counter and begin to tap his fingers impatiently on the marble surface. His feelings on her suggestion turn out to be of little consequence when up against the cogs of possibility already turning in his head. He vocalizes his interest eventually.

"And just who the hell would I invite to my house, Clara?" he says.

He sounds so petulant and, for a second, Clara finds the prospect of the Doctor throwing a house party like some hip young person as abnormally ridiculous as it actually is, and so it takes her a second to school her expression lest she erupts in a fit of giggles. She managed to pull herself together and says, " _Friends_ ," somewhat patronizingly. "You do have some. Allegedly. God knows how."

She knows he's warming up to the idea by the sound of footsteps pacing around the island followed by an unsatisfactory huff.

"Vastra. Jenny. Strax," she continues, off the top of her head. "Kate Stewart would probably be royally cross without an invite so I wouldn't step on her toes if I was you," but she backtracks, "then again not really the best idea to have the head of an organization like hers knowing exactly where you keep your valuables. Choice is yours."

"Jack Harkness," the Doctor proposes suddenly, sounding like something's just clicked into place in his mind and he's so very put out about it. Clara isn't familiar with the name so she keeps her mouth shut, expecting him to elaborate. "He's a friend of the family," the Doctor offers, recognizing the curious spark in her eyes and leaves it at that.

Clara nods happily. "Good. This is a good start," a smug grin spreads on her face. "Now do you want to sit yourself down and we plan this together as adults or do you want to stand over there and sulk some more?"

 **X**

Planning a ridiculous housewarming party was not something he had expected to throw himself into but one hypothetical afternoon arguing over the logistics with Clara flew right on by. Now, suddenly, he found himself standing in River's favorite bake shop sometime in Paris 1973 early in the day ordering a chocolate cake, a tarte vanilla and, what the hell, sure, add two dozen macarons to that order. Why not?

The invites had been delivered two days prior, in person, at Clara's iron insistence. Well… perhaps all but one. In his defense, he had been especially dreading that one and so he kept it to himself for now. He would seek Harkness out in his own time.

He's reluctant to admit it aloud but the Doctor finds he's relived for all the fuss Clara's placing on the occasion. It was something to do, something to overdo, and doing so with Clara reminded him he that wasn't entirely alone. It's something he'd forgotten since getting his wife out from the Library. He'd fallen so deep inside his own promises and the listless loneliness that accompanied missing a single person that he'd completely cast his friend aside when she was standing right there, by his side, all this time. He's determined to make it up to Clara somehow.

 **X**

"I need to find an address," he announces to Clara, as even he knows it's _time_.

There's only a day left between them and the party. The _right_ Jack Harkness would be hard to pinpoint on a whim so he'd need extra help to get a version he could work with and the Doctor happened to know just the person who could provide such information.

"Right," Clara replies, chipper as ever. The scissors and countless ribbons she was hanging about the place had practically been glued to her fingertips. "I'll keep the ship at sea here but do bring dinner home cos I sure as hell am not cooking."

Finding the sight quite amusing it's with a warm smile that the Doctor tugs on his velvet coat and says, "Whatever you say, teach."

"Something that tastes like chicken!" Clara adds just as the Old Girls' doors closed behind him.

The Doctor wastes no time in fishing out the phone Blu gave him for the sake of speedy contact from his inner pocket. He's pulled a wire out from the console and connected it to the phone charger, turning his attention towards the monitors and waiting for a direct timeline to show up on the screen. The Doctor pulls a lever forward and feels an immediate thrill at the familiar jolt of the Tardis taking off.

Much too soon for him, the Tardis lands. He disconnects the cellular phone and slipped it deftly into his jacket before marching over to the twin doors and pulling them open.

The Doctor had landed in an empty office. Blu's office, if the personalized name plate sat on the desk it is anything to go by. He wandered over and plucked it from the desk, fingertips tracing over his son's name, his hearts gathering affectionate swells of both awe and pride.

The door to the far left of the room bangs open and there he stood. Blu Williams, slightly panting and glowering over at his father.

"I thought I'd heard her," said Blu, shutting the door behind him much gentler than he'd opened it.

The Doctor placed Blu's name plate back on the desk and turned to face his son fully. "I know I should have called before bothering you at work but," and he shrugged. He really could come up with an excuse only Blu, unnervingly, would see right through a lie, so why bother?

"Yeah, that's out of character," Blu deadpanned, sticking his hands deep into his pockets. "Anything in particular you came by for?" he prompted, evidently not one to wait for long. "Mum?"

"No, no, your mum's fine," the Doctor assured. "I could've just come for lunch you know," he pointed out. "Or a hug. You never know with this one," he pointed at his own face.

Blu grinned, all sharp edges. "How very improper of me to insinuate otherwise, bloody hell."

The Doctor huffed, giving an inch or perhaps even more. "Alright, alright," he conceded. "So I do need your help with something."

"I can act shocked," Blu offered, moving over to take a seat behind his desk and offering his father one across. "I've many gifts."

"Shush, you," said the Doctor, amused, and sat down. "So listen, I need to find Harkness, one that's timeline permits him to join the family for an evening. There's a," he found himself suddenly embarrassed to say it aloud.

For the time gone by spent planning, it hadn't been much more than a project built up by he and Clara. A fantastical whim he at first indulged for the sake of her and secondly, committing wholeheartedly when he found it drove out his ever lingering listlessness. Wiped it away and filled him with a determination towards something, not greater, but purposeful. Something worth doing because it mattered.

His initial dislike for the idea thawed the more he worked for the cause at Clara's side, her persistence was catching. This was something important, this was something personal. Perhaps that's why it catches at his throat as he mumbles, "There's this housewarming party."

Blu's blue eyes did not widen in surprise or narrow in reflection as to why his father would be attempting such a human-like tradition. Instead Blu simply said, "The housewarming, yes. I'd figured that was soon upon us."

"So you know all about it?" the Doctor lightly accused.

His son had the gall to smugly confirm, "Obviously."

"You're terrible at the whole spoilers' business, do you know that?" the Doctor stated. "But that's beside the point. I need Harkness, an available one. Tell me where I can find him."

"I can pass it along for you," said Blu magnanimously.

"Will you?" the Doctor tried not to perk up too much at the offer. It _would_ be one less thing to take care of.

"It's not trouble, I'm seeing him later anyway," said Blu. At the Doctor's eyebrow of inquiry Blu's smirk widened, positively shark-like. _"We_ do lunch."

The Doctor gives his son a roll of his eyes and groans miserably, "Fine, fine. Whatever. Do it. I've got to get back."

The Doctor is up and out of his seat, retreating to his Tardis about to close the doors, when Blu calls out, "And Dad."

The Doctor peeks his head back out of the Tardis doors as he answers, "Yep?"

"Have fun," Blu says, so soft and hopeful and kind that the Doctor doesn't know quite what to say to that.

His relationship with Blu consisted of jumbled up missing puzzle pieces made up from instances of now and then, all yet to be a constant, and yet Blu had called him _Dad_ nonetheless. Face first and forthright. It's another piece to this puzzle, another piece that plainly fits. The Doctor finds he's coming to be more and more at ease, almost effortlessly responsive, to being called the names a son names his father, and so his own response comes equally as natural, as easy as breathing.

"Love you," and so that's how he leaves, a tone of softer affections with some well wishes for the future. "I'll see you soon."

 **X**

It's a good five hours before people are due to arrive when the doorbell at the house on Home goes off. The Doctor and Clara look at each other curiously before ambling towards the front door and pulling it open. There, on the very doorstep, stood River Song, smiling radiantly, accompanied by the twins who stood at either side of her.

"River!" Clara exclaimed, equally surprised but happy as a clam.

"Hello, Clara dear," River pulled Clara into a hug and gave her a kiss on each cheek. The children took this as a sign of sorts and rushed off from their mother's side, making a beeline straight for the kitchen. "Trust those two, I told them there'd be sweets," warned River fondly.

Clara giggled excitedly, peering a worried eye over at the Doctor, who had yet to react. He was looking at River with such an intensity that tears were glistening at his eyelids.

"Why don't you give us a minute, love," River suggested.

"Of course! I'll get the twins occupied and such, give you two some, er, yeah." As Clara scampered, River turned to face her husband. She planted herself a foot away from him and let him process, her face but a calm surety, eyes shining back at him brighter than the stars he loved so much.

The Doctor took a moment to swallow back all of the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him and reached out his hand. River took it, allowing him to drag her over and envelop her in his arms. He held her silently, breathing in the scent of her hair and caving under the familiarity of curls pressing against his skin, finally reduced to tears when the realization hit that her arms were holding him securely in return.

River let him cry into her neck, rubbing the palm of her hand up and down his back in reassurance. "There, there. We're alright, my love."

"How exactly are you here? You're upstairs, and you're here. How?"

"Did you really think for one moment I'd miss my own housewarming party?" River pursed her lips, pulling back to look into the Doctor's eyes. The look of her gaze all but declared him a nostalgic idiot but nevertheless she took his face in her hands lovingly and responded, "And don't you go and act like you're the only one who has ever hung out with yourself. Well," she grinned, a mischievous gleam in her eye, "spoilers."


	22. World Enough And Time 9

**_World Enough And Time (9/?)_**

12/River & their timey-wimey brood

 **Summary** : _"Alright, fine. I'll explain," River says, her tone long-suffering like he's nagged at her for days on end and not just brought it up twice in almost a full hour._

 **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.

 **AN:** Chapter title from the song "Wish That You Were Here" by Florence  & The Machine

* * *

 ** _but even closer to you, you seem so very far_**

When the Doctor pulled himself together River dragged her weepy eyed husband over into the kitchen. Surely their twins were behaving well enough for Clara but they did have a dash of mischief between the both of them and that could get out of hand without their mother there to sort them out.

Clara had the pair of them nibbling on some chocolate macarons that River recognized in an instant. She turned back to gaze at her husband, hushed but surprised, "Oh, you didn't?"

"Fresh from Paris, dear," he answered, somewhat smug. River smiled at her old fella and called out for the twins, "Darlings, where are those manners? Say hello to Daddy will you."

Jessica hopped off from her place beside Clara at the table and sprinted into her father's arms, jumping up at the last minute and into his chest for him to catch, producing an _oof_ from the Doctor's lips at the action. He secured her in his arms before spinning her around, muttering _Jessie, my Jessie_ with a fondness attached to his hearts since he first laid eyes on her. She cackled happily at his efforts.

Young Art watched this play out while he chewed on his own macaroon without hurry. The Doctor raised a brow at River in inquiry but River's tranquil smile remained on her face and assured him this was more than alright. "Art," the Doctor said in greeting nonetheless. Art smiled widely and it looked the very imitation of River's own, making the Doctor's hearts lighten all the more and an excitable laugh tumble out of his mouth.

"Tell me you planned the guest list," River addressed Clara, walking over to join the other woman and sneak a macaroon for herself. The woman fooled no one.

Clara chortled, eyes widening comically. "Are you kidding? If it were up to him we'd have exactly one guest," the teacher shrugged helplessly, "and you're upstairs, so."

River laughed, "I have missed you, Clara."

"And I've missed you, Professor," Clara parroted easily, looking over to the Doctor, happy as a clam.

It's only when River glances back over at the Doctor and that she finds a very troubled expression on his face and she realizes she's quite mucked a few things up with that seemingly painless comment.

 **X**

"So how are you here?" the Doctor ventures the subject again as River helps gather plates and utensils, moving them out into the sitting room for the guests to use. An estimated twenty people currently occupied the house on Home. "You pointedly didn't answer the first time I asked, or more, you deflected," he scoffed, "With sentiment and the grandiose sort of posturing I've only known to exist in one other person."

"Jealous?" River quips, brushing her shoulder against his rather more than she needs to. It's distracting.

The Doctor peers over at his wife, alive and well in their sitting room getting ready for a party, brushing against him like she can't quite help herself. They could almost be dancing.

"Alright, fine. I'll explain," River says, her tone long-suffering like he's nagged at her for days on end and not just brought it up twice in almost a full hour. "Well, some of it I can't explain, but I can make it simple," River turns towards him and invades most of his personal space, which he doesn't pull or shy away from. Her mouth fits itself into a grim line and her eyes search his before fleeting, looking away at the small crowd gathered in their sitting room. She breaks the news gently, says, "It's somewhat fixed, my love."

The Doctor lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Oh, well that's… right. Okay." His smile is perhaps grim but hopeful, too. If a fixed point means his wife and children showing up when he needs them to be there the most then he's not going to damn the universe for it, not for that. Never for that.

"Somewhat not," River continues, laughing unexpectedly. It sounds almost forced, like a sob, and it would be, he thinks, as tears look to be brimming in her eyes only her smile is wide and… _relieved._ "There's more," she tells him, promises him. "There's," she pauses, choosing her words, "endings were ever only beginnings. We understand that now."

"Do we?" he asks, mystified by this iron certainty behind her statement.

And then she blinks, at him at them at this. He sees the chastisement on herself as soon as she realizes that he's still new at this, that this isn't the Doctor she's been through with this already. This is him, just at the beginning.

"Trust me," River urges quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder and moving it upwards to cup at his cheek. Her eyes shine and her smile is without doubt, without reason for any of his doubts to trouble her either.

The memory of a similar conversation comes unbidden, one with little trust handed and little else given really. It makes his blood boil to think on it now, how stupidly he'd clung to the idea of the unknown with that face and how stupidly he'd hurt her.

 _I like a bad girl me, but trust you_? _Seriously?_

She'd been silent as stone standing in his Tardis, taking his taunts. Looking back on his previous face, her hearts in his hands always seemed handled so carelessly. He refused to do that again.

"Always," he replies to his wife, turning his face and kissing her palm softly. "Completely, you ought to know that by now, Professor Song."

River beamed at him. "Keep calling me Professor and we may have to find the nearest closet so I can have my way with you, guests be damned."

"Oh god please don't talk out loud like that," Clara squeaked.

The Doctor and River turned to find Clara hovering beside them at the drinks table staring miserably up at the ceiling. She had been in the middle of pouring herself a cup full of something red one of River's side of the guests sent in their place.

River took a step away from her husband and tried to mask her massive grin while the Doctor did not.

"Sorry, dear," said River, opting to be polite. She wasn't 200 and childless anymore after all and had to set an example. At the Doctor's silence River elbowed him.

"Yes. Apologies." He responded, not sounding one bit apologetic.

River sought the Doctor's hand and dragged him over to the other side of the room and he went willingly. She perched them at the end of the stairs, from there they could see the expanse of the sitting room and everyone in it.

Jessie had flocked to Jack Harkness like a moth to flame, much like her older brother. Jack was giving her a piggyback ride, her bright fiery hair cascading down the side of his head made for a rather peculiar sight.

Meanwhile Martha Jones, who had arrived with Jack and engaged all of their young Art's attention, waved them away good naturedly and promised to keep him company. The boy had been far too flustered and shy to say anything, but he hadn't left Martha's side since she'd arrived and Martha hadn't minded. The woman had also caught Clara's eye, as she wandered over momentarily. The two women's body language appeared relaxed and they talked like they knew each other for years rather than just met tonight.

"If we had more of these, your friends would meet more people like them and then they'd realize that they all have more in common than anyone in the universe," River spoke quietly, dropping a kiss to his cheek. "They're all the best of the best."

"Not quite," the Doctor corrected, gazing at River with eyes bright and heavy with emotion. Emotion that stuck to the back of his throat. He cleared it before speaking, "What did you mean when you told Clara you missed her?"

"Doctor," River warned. She sounded more than slightly exasperated at his insistence. She never liked being caught upon.

"What happens to Clara, River? You know, I know you know. I know that look, tell me. Tell me what happens to Clara."

"Do I have to kiss you to bloody shut you up?!" she snapped hastily.

"Has any other way ever really worked?" he responded flatly.

River laughed then. Unexpectedly, joyously. She placed her hands to his cheeks and drew him in for a kiss. Soft and lingering, and sad.

"Clara is here," she said, her eyes closed. She made her voice sound like a reminder, tethering him and his resolve, both which he found so desperately waning in the time that had gone by to now. So he too closes his eyes and listens, clings to her words like they're the thing that's going to save him.

"Be here," she tells him, pressing her forehead against his. "Live. That's all you need to do, my love. Take every day as the gift that it is and hold it close, be selfish with hit. Try not to think of the future. And I know that's a challenge for you, I know that's like telling you not to feel time or breathe or sodding _think_ , but for once embrace the ache. Embrace the moment, endure it." River pulled away slightly, opening her eyes, meeting his readily. "Don't be scared," she smiled encouragingly, "be ready."

"But how will I know I'm ready?" the Doctor asks.

River shrugs, as if the answer is obvious and sitting right in front of him only he refuses to see it. "Time, my love. Time keeps moving, and we are not merely standing motionless through it. Time will tell."

"I don't want to go through it alone," he says, a confession slipped out before he can swallow it down, but there it is. The ugly truth.

River runs a palm over his velvet jacket, smoothing it down and asking, "Are you? And you better take a good look around before you go and answer that one because I will smack you so hard Clara will have to fit you upstairs right next to me, I swear to bloody-"

He swoops in and kisses her, if only to stop her nattering.


End file.
